The Adventures of the New Neighbour
by MarieLaTerrible
Summary: When an unknown woman is found in Sherlock Holmes' bathroom, the everyday mystery-solving at 221B Baker Street is likely to be turned upside-down. Chapter 4 "the adventure of the puzzling bullet" uploaded
1. Prologue

_Author's note: this is my first attempt at writing in english something that is not for work. This is done for the sake of a Dear Friend of mine - He will recognize Himself. If you notice any grammar/spelling/syntax mistake, feel free to contact me through personal message (PM) to let me know.  
Note that the pokémon inserts are here only as an announcement of eventual future crossovers. I do not think they are important enough to deserve this fiction to be classified as "crossover". But if in your opinion I should move it to the "crossover" section, feel free to contact me._

_Also, if you wish for a french translation/adaptation - just ask, and I'll provide. (Pour une traduction/adaptation en français, il suffit de demander.)_

* * *

PROLOGUE  
°oOo°

* * *

This was one rainy and cold autumn afternoon of year 86 A.C.* in the city of London. I had been walking my dog-pokémon despite the terrible weather, as I needed some fresh air. Holmes had been smoking and playing the violin without interruption for the last three days, not speaking about the poison he injected himself with, and I knew he was in absolute need for a case. To the despair of Mrs. Hudson's minccino and the natural tendency of this chinchilla-like species to clean and tidy everything in sight, Holmes kept his door locked, keeping the good pokémon from doing its cleaning duties.

"Holmes, I'm home!" I yelled through the flat we shared.  
I hoped for no answer, moving myself and Silver Finch the herdier towards the bathroom, for my pokémon needed a bath. The dark blue fur of its back was soaked with rain. Its creamy moustaches and brown-orange legs had gathered more than their share of mud.  
Imagine my stupor when I discovered there was someone already settled in the tub, relaxing as if at home, and that this someone was a complete stranger to me!  
"Holmes, you have a client!" I yelled again.  
The detective hopped out of his room like a diglett out of its hole, his violin in one hand, the bow in the other, and eyes very red like his watchog's.

"A client, Watson? Come in, come in!"  
"In the bathroom" I added. "A woman. Taking a bath. I thought you knew?"  
Said person kept on looking at us through the open door, with a crazy smile on her face, giggling.  
"Oh, and I even have roleplaying actors for myself!" she finally exclaimed. "Nice nice nice nice!"  
She clapped her hands together like a child on Christmas Eve.  
"Excuse me?" asked Holmes, not troubled at all by the situation.  
"Best costumes I ever saw!" the woman kept on squee-ing with excitement, eyes sparkling.

Holmes and me exchanged a puzzled look.  
"And whom have I the honour to address?" asked Holmes.  
She squee-ed again before answering:  
"Name is Manda. Manda Leech. I won the first prize!"  
"First prize of what?" asked Holmes again.  
His eyes were scanning the room. I could tell by his face that something was wrong.

"Oh, and this is Hawk Fur, by the way" she added, pointing at the taillow, a swallow-like pokémon the size of a turkey, that just emerged from under the soap bubbles. "We are so super-duper-happy to have won the first prize!"  
"First prize of what?" insisted Holmes, pacing the room, searching for God-knows-what.  
"The quiz" she said angrily. "Quit your role-play for two minutes, would you? The quiz. About Sherlock Holmes. I won. First prize. One night and one day. Hello!"  
"One night and one day of what?" asked Holmes absent-mindedly.  
He was down on all four, still searching, and Thunder Fog the watchog has joined him. The mongoose-like pokémon hold its tail very straight, while the yellow stripes of its upper body sparkled with the excitement of the chase.

"One night and one day staying at the Museum."  
"Museum of what?"  
She sighed and finally crossed her arms over her chest, covering part of her nakedness.  
"Sherlock Holmes Museum!"  
She rolled her eyes as Holmes does when I am unable to follow his deductions.  
"My flat is not a museum" answered Holmes, brushing the dust off of his trousers. "May I ask you how you entered here?"

She sighed again.  
"Through the door, you silly!"  
"And may I ask you where your clothes are, young lady?"  
She turned, pointing at the floor, saying:  
"In my case, you dumb-"  
And she stopped, eyes wide. She stared at both Holmes and me for a moment, and then:  
"You sick perverts! Gimme back my clothes! NOW!"  
She was standing now, one arm across her chest, covered with soap bubbles, and red from anger. The taillow perched on her shoulder, puffing its white chest and dark back feathers, looking twice its ordinary size.

Holmes raised both hands in a soothing gesture.  
"Do not misunderstand our intentions, young lady. We did not steal a single thing from you. But you should know that..."  
"Holmes" I interrupted, poking him with my elbow. "Don't you think..."  
I handed him his bathrobe.  
"Oh, of course!" he said. "I forgot my manners! There you are!"  
He covered the woman's shoulders with the bathrobe, helping her out of the tub.  
She calmed down a little, though she still looked unhappy.

"Well" she said "if it is to let me snuggle in Sherlock Holmes' bathrobe, I can let you keep my clothes. For now."  
Holmes made her sit in the most comfortable armchair we had, and gestured me to come by his side. He seemed rather intrigued by the unexpected, naked guest.  
"So" he told her "you are telling me that you do believe this place is a museum?"  
"I do not believe it is" she answered "because it is. It's a fact, not a belief."  
"And you earned a stay here by filling in a quiz about me?"  
"Easy-peasy, actor boy" she answered with a grin. "No-one save me remembered that Holmes' watchog's full name is Thunder Fog, and not simply Thunder. 'twas mentioned only once in the whole books."

"What books?" I asked, completely lost in the conversation.  
"The books written by Doctor Watson about Sherlock Holmes" she said patiently.  
"What is the day to-day?" asked Holmes, out of the blue.  
"August 29th, 245 A.C." she said. "Are you okay?"  
I had no clue of what she meant by that, though Holme's face relaxed. He even smiled.  
"I see now" he said.  
I was still in the dark myself.  
"I see, I see. Well, young lady - Miss Leech, if that is your name - I am afraid you will have to wait a couple of centuries before having your clothes back."

"WHAT?" she exclaimed.  
She raised on her feet, looking as terrible as Mrs Hudson the day Holmes had a mishap in a chemical experiment that blew part of the walls.  
"Calm down, please" said Holmes. "Look through the window, and see by yourself if you can recognize the level of technology and the fashion worn by the people in the streets."  
Gesturing her towards said window, he grabbed the closest chair and readied himself, as if she was about to collapse.

She frowned, gave a mean, suspicious look, and glanced behind the curtains. Once. Twice. A third time. Then she opened and closed her mouth like a fish out of the water.  
"Okay" she said. "You are good. Now, stop that acting, it starts to be creepy."  
"Unfortunately, this is the truth" told Holmes in a soft voice. "I am really sorry."  
I still had no clue about what was going on. It was as if those two were sharing some kind of secret - but I knew it was not possible. They had never met before, as far as I knew.

"So, that's it? That's really it?" she said with a weak tone.  
She slipped on the floor, her taillow in her lap, white with shock.  
"Watson, a small glass of brandy please" asked Holmes.  
Miss Leech gestured she did not need it. She kept her fists in her lap, shaking hard from head to toes.  
"Are you sure you will be all-right?" asked Holmes. "I will have Mrs. Hudson-"  
He could not finish his sentence, for the woman had jumped on her feet, and was hugging Holmes closer than a wife would dare to hold her husband in public.

"This is so AWESOME!" she said.  
Then she stared hopping around in the room, squee-ing like mad, while her pokémon was circling the ceiling, chirping in a similar way.  
"What is awesome? Holmes, what is going on?" I desperately asked.  
"Well, my dear Watson, what do you make of all the clues that sit under your eyes?"  
"This woman is a lunatic!" I answered. "I will have specialists handle her, poor thing."  
"Loony yourself" the woman told me, sticking her tongue out.

"My dear Watson, your explanation does not take into account most of the clues! See, she entered this flat by the door, but Mrs Hudson did not see her, neither did Thunder. She left her clothes on the floor, but they are nowhere to be found. She thinks we are in 245 A.C., and that my house is a museum. Moreover, she knows things about myself - and yourself certainly, for she knows about your writings - that none other in this city and in this time knows. Obviously, she comes from the future, and she just realized it by looking through the window."  
"Dear God!" I exclaimed. "And how did she arrive here? What do we do now?"

He turned towards the hopping woman and her pokémon, engaged in a singular dancing-like behaviour, chanting "I'm with real Sherlock Holmes! I'm with real Sherlock Holmes!" then back to me.  
"Well, she obviously has no clue about how she arrived here, and neither do we. We can not let her wander alone in this time. We will have to care for her."  
"But" I protested "what will Mrs Hudson say? And the public opinion! It is not proper for a single woman to live with two single men such as the two of us!"  
"Of course not!" said Holmes. "We will settle her next door, in flat A."

She appeared to have overheard us, for her chanting changed to "I'm going to be Sherlock Holmes' neighbour!".  
"And after that, what will we do?" I asked Holmes.  
"Well, teach her how to behave properly, help her find a job, and keep her under close observation."  
"Why? Holmes, why do you not want to get rid of her?"  
"Because" whispered Holmes in my ear "she knows about us. About our cases. About our future. About the future of this country, and of the world. She is dangerous, Watson, more dangerous than my old nemesis himself. If anybody realizes the knowledge she has, and decides to make use of her -we are doomed."  
I was glad the poor lady was too busy celebrating our encounter to spy over Holmes and me. Who knows what terrible dangers lay ahead of her?

"Moreover" added Holmes casually "I have not yet solved the mystery of how she arrived here. And I do not intend on leaving it at that!"

* * *

_* this date refers to the timeline of a french fanfiction of mine, entitled __La Belle e(s)t la Bête_

* * *

_Sources used throughout this fiction: _

_ www. springhole. net_

_ bulbapedia. bulbagarden. net_

_ www. sherlockian _

_ www. sshf _

_ www. sherlockpeoria indexclassic. html_

_ www. victorianlondon _

_ betterholmesandgardens. blogspot. ca/_

_ www. jadedcompass ocular_helmsman/_

_ www. sherlocktron _

_ www. bestofsherlock _

_ www. victorianweb _

_ victorianeralovers _

_ www. victoriana _

_ home. kendra victorianrituals/Victor/ritualsII. htm_

_ www. avictorian _

_ www. elegantwoman victorian-etiquette. html_


	2. The Baseball Passion

THE ADVENTURE OF THE BASEBALL PASSION  
°oOo°

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

Our new neighbour was still borrowing clothes from Mrs Hudson, waiting for her own to be delivered, at the time this adventure began. In a couple of weeks she had taken a few nasty habits that Holmes did not mind, but which I found rather annoying, if not completely improper of a young, single lady. She would suddenly hug Holmes and even me out of the blue, kiss us goodnight, lay across our laps stretching like a cat, and despite all my protesting, Holmes would not mind her. She could have been a pokémon, he would not have acted otherwise.  
This morning, I found him writing in a notebook, waiting for our guest Miss Leech to be done dressing herself in the bathroom.  
"Hello Watson!" he greeted me. "Any case you have heard of?"  
"The newspaper has not arrived yet" I reminded him "and when we have visitors, they always look for you, not for me. You should be the one knowing."

He shrugged.  
"By the way, what are you writing about?" I asked.  
"Studying our guest, of course!" he answered, as if stating the obvious. "I am still trying to understand every last word of this mystery."  
My herdier Silver Finch and I exchanged a significant look. Our eccentric friend was only being himself, after all.  
"Morning!" called Miss Leech, coming out of the bathroom.  
"Morning" we answered.  
Holmes' watchog came out if its hiding and perched on the top of the couch, following her with its wide red eyes as she was hopping around excitedly.

"I still can't believe I'm here!" she marvelled. "Squee!"  
Mrs Hudson arrived, bringing breakfast, and the newspaper. Our neighbour was the first to grab it, leafing through the crime news, plucking the pages as she read them. Holmes kept on writing in his notebook, and I was left alone at the breakfast table, pondering about what to do.  
"Case!" exclaimed our neighbour. "Case case case case case!"  
Holmes jumped off of the couch like a jack-in-the box, and in an instant he was reading the page handled to him by Miss Leach.  
"Let's go, Watson!" he told me, trowing the newspaper on the ground.  
Before I knew it, Holmes and me were in a cab, my breakfast toast still in my hand, and our neighbour was waving at us through the window.

"So, Holmes, what now?"  
"Woman, Fred Morgan, died at 2:55 PM yesterday in a baseball diamond during a training session of the women's team. Apparent cause of death: blunt trauma to the spinal column. We are heading towards the morgue: I need a close look at the corpse before jumping to conclusions, though I already have five-"  
"I was not speaking about the case" I interrupted. "I was speaking about Miss Leech."  
"Irrelevant!" exclaimed Holmes. "Now, my dear Watson, please focus. Fred Morgan... Fred Morgan..."  
All attempts to have a decent conversation about the indecent situation of the young lady in our apartment were useless. All of my friend's mind belonged to his present case, much to my dismay.

It was no surprise for Holmes to find Inspector Lestrade in great conversation with the medical examiner.  
"I knew you would be here" said Holmes.  
"Good morning to you to" grumbled Lestrade back.  
"May I...?" asked Holmes.  
"Not this time. The case is simple, really." protested Lestrade.  
The poor inspector was pushed aside by a Holmes desperately carving for data regarding the case.

"She was killed by a blow that broke her neck!" called Lestrade. "Accidental! Happened during the baseball practice! Certainly caused by a baseball bat! Are you even listening to me?"  
Holmes was not, obviously. He was inspecting the mark that the trauma left on the corpse, measuring its every dimension.  
"What do you make of it, Watson?" he asked me, turning to the close inspection of the victim's outrageous clothing.  
"Well, Lestrade seems to be right" I answered hesitatingly. "The circular shape of the mark, the broken neck, it all indicates a sharp blow with a blunt object - like a baseball bat. And a very strong one, it is."  
"And I will prove you that you are wrong about the weapon!" exclaimed Holmes while putting his measuring tape and magnifying glass back into his pocket. "We are done here, Watson. Let's head for the scene of crime, and interview the witnesses!"

He turned to the protesting Lestrade, who, after a short argument, finally gave up and provided Holmes with a few names.  
"And now, to the scene of crime!" announced Holmes. "Though I'm afraid we will not be able to find many clues, due to the tendency of the policeman to stupidly trample them while, hum, _investigating_..."  
He chuckled lightly, as if the sole idea of a policeman doing an investigation was the best joke he ever heard.  
"They are so blind" he sighed. "As for you, my dear Watson, you should know better, after all the cases we have been through."  
"Alright, Holmes. If you say that it was not a blow from a bat, then, shouldn't you being pacing the scene of crime down on all four inspecting the ground? What are we waiting for?"  
"The cab, Watson. We are waiting for the cab."

In our way for the baseball diamond, Holmes pointed a few details to me.  
"How do you think, my dear Watson, could a lady in her fifties kill another one by breaking her neck?"  
"Why are you asking that to me?"  
"Because Mrs Frederic Morgan plays in the Old Ladies' Team, Watson. I saw one of their recruiting adds in the newspapers three days ago, accompanied with a picture of their team, featuring, among them, our victim. Therefore, I can assure you that there was no one but other mature and aged ladies at yesterday's practice."  
"Baseball players" I corrected. "Strong enough to hit a ball with a bat."  
"A strange bat indeed..." remarked Holmes.  
He did not want to tell me more until we arrived on the scene of crime.

The area was not closed, as the policemen had already done their work.  
"I do not like that, Watson" Holmes confessed to me. "How am I supposed to find clues if the scene of crime has already been trampled, not only by the police, but also by the ignorant public?"  
He grumbled to himself, looking at the children playing fetch with a ball in the middle of the diamond. After a short while, he went for the carrier of the ball, and asked him a few questions.

"This is a very nice ball you have, kid! Did you get it for your birthday?"  
"Oh no Sir, we found it yesterday."  
"Found it? Where?"  
The little boy pointed towards the gallery.  
"'twas lying there, Sir, in the grass."  
"Maybe it was lost by some other child playing here before you and your friends" suggested Holmes.  
"Oh no Sir, we were the first ones to play here after the policemen left. So we thought, if the police did leave the ball, we could keep it."

The little boy looked at Holmes with apprehension.  
"Of course, of course!" exclaimed Holmes. "I will just have a little look at it, if I may, and let you go back to your game."  
The children consulted each other before letting Holmes inspect the ball.  
"You'll give it back to us, pwomised?" pleaded a toddler.  
Holmes did not answer.  
Like I saw him do with the mark on the corpse, he measured the ball, examined it with his magnifying glass, threw it in the air a few times, had Thunder smell it, and pocketed it.  
"Hey!" protested the kids. "Give us back our ball!"  
"I am afraid I have to keep it" answered Holmes "but, to cope with this inconvenience, here, take this."  
He handed a few coins to the children.  
"There, you can purchase a better ball with that, and candies also."  
"Oh, thank you Sir! Thank you!"

With the younglings running out of the diamond, certainly to buy some candies with the money Holmes gave them, my friend smiled with contempt.  
"Let us try to guess where the body was found" he announced, before pacing the ground, sending Thunder the watchog to cover another area.  
I was glad he choose not to do it on all four, though he frequently fell down, crawling on his belly, like a dog following a track.  
"There, Watson! I found it! I found the place!"  
He gestured me to come closer, lying in the trampled grass, eyes shining with contempt.  
"There, I told you it was not an accident, and that it was not a baseball _bat_ that killed the victim!"  
He pointed at what was an important clue to his eyes, yet a common training ground to mine.  
"But I do not want to tell Lestrade about it, not as long as I have not confirmed it by interviewing a few witnesses, and not before uncovering the motive and murderer."

I pat Silver to make him keep quiet during the boring cab ride from the baseball diamond to the house of one of the Old Ladies' Team members. We were greeted at the door by a sharp maid, as pleasant as a prison door.  
"Missy is not home" she said, keeping her body in the half-open door.  
"We are not journalists" explained Holmes calmly, already analysing the situation. "I am Sir Simon Morgan, nephew of Mrs Morgan, and I simply wanted to personally offer my condolences to all of my aunt's team mates, whom I know she was very close. What a loss..."  
Holmes was playing a risky game, but it paid. The maid transformed into a welcoming, sad servant, introduced us into the guests' lounge, and offered us tea.

Mrs Mintie Gill was a woman in her mid-fifties, with an olive skin, neatly braided curly brown hair, brown eyes, and of short size. She took small steps towards us, her eyes red from having cried. A pink cat-pokémon with a moon-like face, creamy belly, short legs and a thick, fluffy tail was following her close by.  
"Oh, my dear child!"  
She extended her arms towards Holmes and rested her head on his shoulder for a couple of seconds.  
"What a terrible loss!"  
Holmes nodded.  
"It is so terribly unfortunate" he said with a tone he assumed would be sad and wet "that she was standing so close from the batter, she who was always so careful!"

The lady frowned.  
"It did not happen like that!" she protested. "Freddie was stupidly - I hope you will forgive me, my dear child, for speaking so harshly about your deceased aunt - standing too far out of the range of the batter, completely unlike the repartition strategy we had worked out!"  
"Do you mean" asked Holmes "that no one carrying a bat was nowhere around her to be seen?"  
"I can not be sure" she answered "because it all happened so suddenly! We were focused on our weekly game, not on who might be or not be here or not there. Moreover..."  
She squinted her eyes.  
"You are not her nephew, are you? Asking all those questions..."  
Before Holmes could explain, she was calling for her butler, shrieking horribly at us.  
My friend took me by the arm, grabbed his hat, and the four of us, two humans and two pokémons, hurried inside the nearest cab.

"So" I summarized to Holmes "this was indeed not an accident!"  
"Indubitably, my dear Watson!" he exclaimed. "Indubitably!"  
"Then, what does that mean, Holmes? Did someone walk in the middle of their training session to kill Mrs Morgan?"  
"That hypothetic someone you are speaking of, Watson, how could he or she have escaped unnoticed?"  
"Using a pokémon, perhaps?" I suggested.  
"No, no, my dear Watson. Had it been a pokémon, the Yard's Psychic Unit would have felt it, and Lestrade would have told us about it. Now, remember Watson, our Inspector's own words. He said: 'Accidental! Happened during the baseball practice! Caused by a baseball bat!' Nothing about a pokémon in Lestrade's words, and nothing in the newspaper article I read about this case. Our murderer is therefore human."

I could not help but marvel before my friend's incredible deduction skills.  
"Where are we heading to, now, Holmes?" I asked.  
"A few other members of the team, and then, the husband" he answered. "There are questions I had no time to ask Mrs Gill."  
"What questions?" I wondered. "We already has proof about the murder. What else do you need?"  
"Ah, Watson, your are such a slowpoke sometimes!" he sighed.  
I turned and turned the situation in my head during the rest of the trip. Only when we were warmly greeted in the cozy house of Mrs Swott, seated in a soft couch and fed tea and scones did I realize what data was missing.

"Homes!" I exclaimed. "If it was not an accident..."  
He gestured me to keep quiet while chatting with Mrs Swott about how she entered the Team, as well as her relationship with the other members. I tried to interest myself in the conversation, like Holmes did, but I zoned out, suffocating in the heavy air perfumed by the smell of the flowers from a dozen plant-like pokémons. I was awoken from my slumber by the purposely loud voice of Holmes:  
"Did you notice anything strange during your training cession yesterday? Anyone who should not have been here?"  
"Well..."  
She put her cup back in its saucer dish and scratched her chin lightly.  
"I was too focused on the game to notice anything. Try Mr Gill maybe - he always accompanies his wife to our trainings. Or Mr Alcott, dear Gladys' husband - he was here too. But I doubt any one of them can tell you anything. Numerous are the people who come to watch over the trainings out of sheer curiosity."  
"Well, thank you for your time, Mylady!"

I rushed after Holmes, still dizzy from the heavy smell coming from the lady's housepokémons. He did not seem very happy about the results from the interview.  
"I need proof, Watson, I need proof." he repeated again and again. "But the common people never look and never analyse. If no-one saw him, I will have to deduce his identity from tinier scraps of clue."  
"Him who?" I asked.  
"I will waste my time by further interrogating the other members of the team. As for their husbands, I hope for no information from them. The only thing I can do now is..."  
"To have a break and stop by the nearest restaurant?" I suggested. "I am starving, Holmes."  
"There is no time for that, Watson! I need to see the husband!"

I blinked a few times.  
"The husband, Holmes? So you think the husband did it? Well, it explains why no-one noticed him walking in the training ground..."  
"No no no no no, Watson! Dear fellow, the husband might be the reason, the cause, the motive, but I do not believe he is the actor."  
Another cab, another trip, and my questions turning in my head repeatedly. Did the husband command the murder of his wife? Did another player decide to get rid of her rival? Could it be that the poor woman died because of a mere domestic argument?  
"You know something about the husband, Holmes, do you not?"  
"I know, Watson, because I deduced. You saw what I saw in the morgue, did you not? Remember, and deduce."  
I did my best to remember the old lady, her golden and curly hair, the grey, dead eyes, the pale skin, her tall and muscular shape...  
Muscular indeed! Proof that she spent a few years training already!

"Holmes, I have it!"  
"Do you think so?"  
"The husband was jealous of the time his wife spent playing and training!"  
"And how do you know that?"  
"Her shape, Holmes, is proof enough that she had been playing for quite a while!"  
"And... you are wrong, dear fellow. The wedding ring, Watson. The wedding ring. Did you see the wedding ring?"  
"Of course I did! She was wearing it when she died, like any good wife should."  
"And what do you make of that?"  
"That she was married?"

Holmes laughed.  
"Quite the deduction, indeed! Now, come on, dear fellow, and let us hear what the husband has to say."  
I followed him out of the cab and into a well-kept yet modest house. A black ribbon adorned the door, reflection of the tragedy that befall the family. A young woman dressed in mourning attire, her eyes red and puffy, opened the door faster than the old housemaid.  
"Sherlock Holmes" announced my friend, giving her his card.  
She nodded, opened the door wider, and revealed two men, one younger one older, both in mourning suits.  
The older man came forwards and shook hand with us.  
"Mr Morgan, I suppose?" asked my friend.  
"Himself" answered the man. "We were about to depart for the morgue to reclaim the body of my recently deceased wife for the funeral. I wish we had met in other circumstances, Mister Detective."

"Alas" revealed Holmes "this is precisely the matter that brings me here today. I need a word with you about your wife."  
The widower told the two young persons–who were in fact his children–to go ahead without him. Then he rang for the housemaid, asking us if we needed anything. Holmes took out his pipe, but I was starving, and soon the housemaid was back with a small collation for me and bowls of food and water for our pokémons.  
"I guess that if you are here asking me questions about my wife, it means the cause of death was not accidental, was it?" remarked Mr Morgan.  
"We have only suspicions..." I started, but Holmes interrupted me, saying:  
"You are indeed right; I suspect this was a murder. The questions is: who, and why? And I am quite positive that you know something of it."  
"Are you suspecting _me_ of killing her? My darling, beloved..."  
He shed a tear. I was feeling quite ashamed by the lack of diplomacy of my friend, more than usual.

"I have to suspect _everybody_, even myself, until I have found the murderer" explained Holmes. "So, dear sir, would you care telling us about your wife? What happened before she died, if she had any known enemies, her relations with her team mates, your relation with her, family, etc."  
"Where can I start? What do you need to know?"  
"Whatever is of interest."  
In interrupted them, confident in my ability to 'guide light' as Holmes would say.  
"Is there anything peculiar that happened to, or with, your wife, these last days?" I interrogated.  
"Well, we..." his eyes were restless despite his efforts to conceal his emotions. "We had an argument. Nothing serious, really, and it was settled down long before she went to her practice cession!"  
"Yet it happened" reminded Holmes "and I need to know what it was about. The tiniest clue might lead to who did that to her."

The husband nodded slightly.  
"You will keep it secret, will you not?" he asked. "If it was to be known, it would be devastating for her honour as well as for mine, and the family's as well."  
Holmes agreed, so did I. Secrets of such had become a habit for the two of us, due to our work.  
The husband cleared his throat before answering: "Frederic had a lover."  
Holmes raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. Please continue."  
"It had been going for a few years, as I discovered. She confessed everything to me, telling me she had made the choice to remain with me and not see the other man again, that she needed to tell me out of honesty."  
"Do you happen to know who the other man was?" asked Holmes.

Mr Morgan shook his head.  
"I only know it lasted for a few years–three, no, four years–and that she was supposed to tell him it was over the day she... died."  
The link was easy to be made, between the rejected lover and the dead woman. Yet Holmes was not over with his investigation: the identity of the man still lacked.  
"May we have a look at your wife's room?"  
The widower nodded.  
"As painful as it might be" he murmured "but I ask you a favour in exchange, Mr Holmes."  
"Name it."  
"If you were to discover the identity of the other man, please keep it secret from me."  
"Granted" answered Holmes, standing up from his seat.

I hastily finished my collation and we called for our pokémons, following our host as he led our way. I knew Holmes would find something of interest in the lady's belongings, as surely as I knew from experience that any clue I would find would be fully understandable by my friend only. Would I find a compromising document, Holmes would deduce the identity of the sender in the blink of an eye. Would I find a strange but not compromising one, he would decipher the code hidden in it at first reading.  
We split our search of the apartment between the two of us: while Holmes would go crawling and sniffing in every odd place, I would leaf through the personal documents, keeping in mind that the adulterous relationship was not supposed to have lasted for more than a few years.

"Anything of interest, Watson?" Holmes asked me after his thorough search of the place.  
"You go first" I politely answered him.  
"Nothing, I am afraid. If the lady concealed anything, it is either in her desk, or non-existent."  
I smiled with contempt.  
"I found a series of letters that might be useful to you. The first one is dated back from four and a half year ago. And there comes this keepsake diary."  
He examined the documents.  
"Excellent, Watson! Excellent!"

Within moments, he had browsed through them, and then came the predictable smirk.  
"We have him, Watson. All the pieces of the puzzle fit perfectly. Mr Morgan!"  
The widower arrived in a short time.  
"Mr Morgan, may I borrow those items from you?" requested Holmes.  
"Some letters and a diary?" wondered Morgan. "May I ask you why?"  
"I am afraid that my answer would break the promise I made you regarding the identity of the other man" answered Holmes.  
The widower raised a hand to his brow.  
"Take them, take them away from me! I do not wish to know!"

I glanced questioningly at Holmes. He gestured me to keep silent, and we departed.  
"I guess that we are about to confront the criminal" I told him.  
"There is no guess, dear fellow" he corrected "only deduction."  
"Well then, I deduce it."  
"And you deduce well, my friend."  
"Then, who is it?"  
"Observe, and deduce."  
I thought for a moment, then pointed at the keepsake diary filled in with newspaper cut-outs from the sports pages.  
"Him?" I interrogated.  
"Indeed" answered Holmes.  
"Shall we call for the Yard?"  
"We are on our way of picking Lestrade up."  
"I shall have known!"

Lestrade protested when we burst into his office.  
"Mind your own business, Holmes" he warned.  
"It will only take a short while" retorted Holmes. "I see through your game now, and I can tell how brilliant you were in this tricky affair!"  
"The baseball bat accident?"  
"Indeed!"  
"I already know that it was a ball and not a ball. The coroner corrected his conclusions upon the basis of the post-mortem evolution of the wound. You are a little bit late, Holmes."  
"I found who threw said ball towards the victim" announced Holmes calmly.  
"Let us depart at once, then" answered Lestrade, getting his had and coat from the hanger. "This will save us some precious time."

Opening the door for the inspector, Holmes led him to our cab.  
"How much time did it take you to deduce that it was Mrs Keefer who was holding the bat the moment Mrs Morgan was hit?" mocked Lestrade.  
"I just learnt it from you."  
"Aha! The great Sherlock Holmes still has things to learn from the Yard!"  
Holmes remained silent until we reached our destination.  
"This is not Mrs Keefer's address!" protested Lestrade.  
Then, with an angry look:  
"What was it, this time, that you saw and I did not?"  
"I shall not spoil the surprise, shall I?" teased Holmes in answer.

We were coldly introduced in the apartments of Sir Jess Charlesworth, a baseball player according to the trophies and equipment decorating his reception room.  
"What are we doing here?" protested Lestrade. "Asking for autographs?"  
"For an interview" answered Holmes.  
"This has better to be serious, or I will arrest you for obstructing the police forces."  
Sir Charlesworth showed up, surprised, his hair wet, a towel around his shoulder.  
"I am sorry I interrupted your bath" apologized Holmes politely. "My name is Sherlock Holmes, this is my friend Doctor Watson, and Inspector Lestrade. We have come to give you back the ball you lost in the baseball diamond yesterday afternoon a little while before 3 PM."

Charlesworth blemished.  
"It is not mine!" he protested. "I mean, I was not even there yesterday!"  
His eyes jumped from Lestrade to me to Holmes to Lestrade again.  
"So, what you are telling us is that it is a complete accident that this brand new baseball was thrown with enough force and precision towards the neck of Mrs Morgan to kill her. And it is also a complete accident if said Mrs Morgan and you have been exchanging letters for (he took out the letters and the diary) four years and a half now, and a complete accident if she decided for the sake of you to create her specialized baseball team some times after meeting you in person. An accident indeed if she forgot to remove her wedding ring during practice yesterday, an accident if she just confessed having _you_ as a lover to her husband, an accident if she happened to die right after choosing said husband over you! What a series of unfortunate accidents for you, Mr Charlesworth!"

The man was pale as death.  
"You got me" he confessed. "You got me, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. There is no denying. I could not bear to have her pick the husband over the lover, especially after all our letters. So, yes, I killed her by breaking her neck with a ball. I thought it would pass for a practice accident, but you are too smart."  
He hold out his arms for Lestrade to restrain him.

We were back at 221B before dinner, to find a happy Mis Leech sitting in the middle of our living room surrounded by a chaos of new women clothes. There was enough of them to make two or three ladies quite contempt. In her hand, she was holding a bill saying "a _garde-robe_ fit for three ladies, for a three-ladies-worth young lady" signed by Holmes.  
"Squee!" she called at us. "Thank you! Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyoutankyou!"  
She hopped around us before we could even remove our hats.  
"Calm down, please, young lady" requested Holmes.  
"What 'bout the case?" she urged.  
"Solved."  
"And, that's all? Solved, and that's all? What happened? Who did it? Why?"  
"This is none of your business, Miss Leech. Now, be so kind as to finish tidying your flat up with Mrs Hudson, so you can properly settle down there, instead of sleeping on our couch while pretending to use Mrs Hudson's guest room."

She let out a yelp of protestation, imitated by her angry taillow, but she obeyed nonetheless. Peace and quiet were soon restored in 221B.  
"Watson?" called Holmes.  
"Yes Holmes?"  
"Please, keep quiet regarding this affair. I promised the husband my best silence, and I intend to keep this promise."  
"Of course, Holmes."  
Then, after a short while:  
"Why, Watson, are commonplace people not able to remain faithful in marriage while admiring other people from afar? Why do they have to bring such violent, stupid reactions upon themselves?"  
"The mysteries of the human heart" I answered.

It was my turn to ask Holmes a question.  
"Why did you pretend that Mrs Morgan has given Charlesworth's name to her husband?"  
"To make him confess faster" explained Holmes.  
He took out his favourite pipe and started smoking.

When the husband showed up to our place a few days later to thank us, asking about what he could do for us, Holmes simply handed him the bill of Miss Leech's _garde-robe_.

* * *

**Sherlock Holmes' notebook**

Finally learnt how to dress properly. Still eccentrically happy and joyful. Bracing myself for eventual aftermath. Kind yet slightly manipulative. In desperate need to be taught human-like manners. No respect for personal space. Or in need for human / reassuring contact. Will suggest Hudson to become Leech's family figure to give the girl stable emotional / social referent and have her out of my way so I can think peacefully when in Baker St. The slightest misstep in our behaviour toward her... I dare not imagine the consequences. Coming from the future, she knows too much about Watson and me and the History to be allowed to talk to strangers–or even to us, for that matter. I hope she remains ignorant of that political power she has.

Finally completely settled down next door. Hopefully her new clothes will keep her busy and tame. Sending Thunder to keep watch. Reminded Hudson to remain silent about the girl, if asked about by strangers she will pretend Leech is shy cousin of hers. I fear the future. Extreme caution required. Leech must NOT leave house.


	3. The Disappearing Fiancées

THE ADVENTURE OF THE DISAPPEARING FIANCÉES  
°oOo°

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

Folding the newspaper, I started looking for Holmes. I assumed he would still be doing some bibliographical research to further his vast knowledge regarding everything that could be useful for his work, like he was before I started reading the news, but he was not in our siting room anymore. I feared he would be using his seven percent solution again, despite the context not fitting with it - Holmes only does it when infinitely bored, and our last case was dated back from the previous day only. I knocked at the door of his room, waited, entered. He was not there, and his syringe remained untouched. His violin was still in place, too. Where on Earth could he be?  
"Silver" I called.  
The herdier nodded.  
"Search for Holmes."  
The faithful poké-dog lowered his nose to the floor, zig-zagged across the room, and barked towards the door. Did Holmes went out without telling me?

I found Holmes in a very un-gentlemanly posture, peeking through the keyhole to our neighbouring lady in flat A.  
"What are you doing, Holmes?" I exclaimed in a whisper.  
"Hush" he answered. "I am observing and deducing, Watson!"  
"For God's sake, Holmes, grow up! Watching over a lady at her dressing is childish, disrespectful, and very unlike you."  
"She is not at her dressing, and I am merely studying her behaviour."  
"What behaviour, Holmes?"  
He rolled his eyes.  
"I need to know, Watson."  
"Know what?"  
"Know what she knows."

The door opened. Miss Leech, in undergarments only, looked down at Holmes and me crouching behind her apartment's door with annoyed eyes and a sigh.  
"Seriously, guys, if you want to ask me something, just ask! You look ridiculous. Moreover, Holmes, I gave Thunder a bath."  
She handed him his watchog, with its brown fur perfectly washed, its round ears perfumed, and its straight tail adorned with ribbons.  
"So" she said "what do you wanna know? What will be your next case? Next sunday's lottery numbers?"  
"I'll go for the lottery numbers!" I exclaimed in marvel.  
"Sorry, dude" she smiled at me "I never knew that. 't was a joke."  
She winked.  
"Do _not_" warned Holmes "never _EVER_ tell me the solution to a case."  
"I know. Spoils the fun, doesn't it?"

"In a more extended way, do not reveal anything about the future. To no-one."  
"Oki doki! Anything else?"  
He looked down at his pokémon.  
"No ribbons, next time, young lady. It is not practical while going on an investigation."  
"Oki doki!"  
She smiled, closed the door behind her. Holmes turned towards me.  
"I still can not understand how she was transported back through time" he confessed "and now she makes me wonder about how many cases of mine she knows, how well she remembers the political movements in Europe from her history lessons at school, and so on. And yet you know how I hate to be on more than one case at a time."  
"If you wait until this mystery is solved, my dear fellow, you might as well never think about anything else in your entire life!" I answered.

He groaned.  
"I want to know" he confessed "but I know I should not. Yet I can not stop thinking about it. For example, if I discover she knows about how I die, it means that you will survive me."  
"Or" I suggested "that she payed careful attention during her visit in the museum about your life, or to her history lessons."  
"Fair point, dear Watson" he observed.  
Holmes appeared a little bit relaxed, if such a thing was possible for the machine-like being that Holmes is.  
"Let us return to our apartments, shall we?" I suggested.  
He nodded.

Someone rang at the door. We heard Mrs Hudson cry in indignation, shout angrily, slam the door. A few moments later, she ran up the stairs, her face red then white then red then white and so on and on.  
"What is the matter?" interrogated Holmes.  
"There was some ruffian at the door!" explained Mrs Hudson. "He was asking to rent Miss Leech for half an hour! How gross!"  
I could see Holmes' mind working fast. He blemished a little–or maybe I was tricked by my eyes–and hurried inside our neighbour's apartment.  
She had opened the window wide and was contemplating the street below, a huge smile on her face. After the bath she gave to Holmes' pokémon, she had not bothered putting on more clothes above her corset and her petticoat.  
"For God's sake, Miss Leech!" shouted Holmes.  
He grabbed her by the shoulder, sent her flying through the room, fastened the window and pulled the curtains.  
"What are you trying to do, young lady?" he asked harshly.

She looked up at him in shock, water filling her eyes.  
"I _forbid you_, do you hear me? Forbid you to open the curtains of the window, to show yourself to the outside world, and moreover, I forbid you to wear such a light attire, even when you are alone. Understood?"  
A tear of shock rolled down her cheek. I felt sorry for her.  
"Now, dress up, catch your silly bird, and go down to help Mrs Hudson with the daily chores. And if I learn that you stepped out of the house even of only a single toe, I will lock you in your rooms for your safety. Understood?"  
She nodded slowly.  
"Now hurry and dress up."  
She obeyed in the instant.

* * *

**Sherlock Holmes' notebook**

What an airhead. Now half the city knows there is a woman living in 221A, and all knowing persons take her for a harlot. If this does not bring the attention upon her person, nothing will.

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

I had never seen Holmes upset about anything else than being slower to solve a case than his hopes or ego would wish him to. For the first time, I was contemplating my friend in a very disturbed state, something not unlike how he usually behaved after taking his seven percent solution, the positive set of mind set apart.  
"Will she only bring us problems, Watson?" he asked me. "I fear for the future of mankind, if every single woman is as badly tempered and mannered as she is. If neither Mrs Hudson nor I can tame her, we will have to send her to school."  
"You are joking, are you not?"  
"I have never been so serious in my life."  
That I doubted, though I kept my comments to myself.  
"Anyway, I am off to the bookstore. Do you wish me to pick the latest medical journal here?"  
"I think I will accompany you" I answered. "I could make use of a walk. By the way, what do you intend to buying there?"  
"Something regarding the proper manners and etiquette. A gift for our neighbour."

I could not help but chuckle lightly. Holmes was right. The lady could use a couple of such books.  
We were putting on our coats when a pidove, that pigeon-like pokémon with dark-circled yellow eyes and a barred tail, started pecking at our window loudly. It was wearing a harness adorned with the name of the nearest telegram office, in which an envelope could be seen. Holmes opened the window to let the bird in, and took the message it was carrying.  
"It comes from the Yard, Watson!"  
"And what does the good Inspector Lestrade want of us?"  
"A series of disappearances is bringing the attention of the public towards a women's mental health house - nurses and doctors keep quiet - families of victims about to start a riot - no clue in sight - a job fit for you - come at once - Lestrade" read Holmes.  
"I think the matter is pretty obvious" I commented.  
"Indeed, my good fellow. Well, it appears that the books for our neighbour will have to wait until this case is solved. Let us head for the Yard, then."

We arrived there in cab, Holmes smiling with contempt. In moments like this one, he really appeared as if addicted to case-solving–which was, in a way, quite true.  
"Ah, there you are!" commented Lestrade when we entered his room. "I am glad to see you, Holmes. We are quite overwhelmed here, between these numerous disappearances and the usual daily robberies and aggressions."  
"Indeed, indeed. Well, do tell, Lestrade, what exactly this is all about."  
"Since the last two years, eight young ladies, all of them residents from the Daisy Hospital–a women madhouse–disappeared during trips to see their families. All of them pretended whey were about to get married, so I hardly believe their families will see them again. They might very well have fled with their fiancés. Anyway, this starts to be a high number for a single hospital. The families of the disappeared ladies all assured me that no wedding was planned."  
"What is the mental health background of the victims?" asked Holmes. "If the whole of them had a tendency to being delusional, this would explain the common fiancé hallucination, their disappearing being a mere attempt to reach an imaginary future husband."  
"Could be" admitted Lestrade "though that does not tell us where these women are gone. Resident that go missing from an asylum are, alas, commonplace, but the fiancé thing those eight have in common might hide something deeper that only _your_ eyes can see."

Holmes' eyes were bright with attention and anticipation. He was testing the possibilities of the situation not being a case for him only for the sake of form. I knew him too well not to see his whole soul already belonged to these eight missing ladies. Furthermore, Lestrade's flattery lost Holmes' ego for good.  
"I take it!" announced my friend.  
"Thanks for the help" answered Lestrade.  
Holmes scanned carefully the inspector's face, with that piercing gaze of him. Lestrade gestured him to leave.  
"Well, I guess that is all you can tell about the case, then?"  
"Yes Holmes, it is. Now please go."

"As you can see, Watson" commented Holmes in the cab during our trip towards the Daisy Hospital "this one will be pretty difficult to solve due to the timeframe covered by the events. But this only makes it more interesting."  
"I bet" I answered.  
"Though there is something in this case that reminds me of..."  
He closed his eyes, joining his hands by the tip of his fingers. I did the best I could do in such a situation: I remained silent, giving my friend all the time he needed to think.  
"Yes, I have it now!"  
He opened his eyes. He was not smiling. This could not mean anything good.  
"Two years ago, the parents of Miss Vida Klinger went to see me because their daughter was three days late for her monthly visit. She was a resident in the Daisy hospital at that time. The only clue I could find about her was a package for an ice cream that was found in her cell. Common brand, could not be traced back to the purchaser, yet it was not supposed to be there, for the hospital did not serve any ice cream to the residents. Whoever took the girl was very good, very good indeed."

I frowned.  
"Someone as smart as you?" I suggested.  
"No no no no no, Watson. But someone smart enough to ask a certain Professor for his help in doing his criminal behaviour, and smart enough to follow them without making a single mistake. The number of missing residents is up to eight now, urging us to act and find the culprit."  
"And there is the unresolved mystery of the hospital babies" I reminded him.  
"Another very smart affair, and terrible also" he commented. "I can not be ashamed for not solving this case, Watson, for there was not a single clue, not a single trace, and even Mycroft was of no help. The only thing I can be sure of, is that whoever did it, is one of Moriarty's puppets."

There, I think I should recall what happened last year and entitled "The mystery of the hospital babies" though Holmes was unable to solve it and I had to keep my notes for myself.  
Long story short, three babies were found a few weeks apart in front of churches. They were aged of one to ten months, and draped in sheets and coats of a peculiar type Holmes was able to trace back to the Daisy Hospital. Despite all of our research, we were unable to link the babies themselves to the hospital, as none of the residents had been seen with a child. Even Thunder's and Silver's sense of smell was useless. Holmes, at this time, could only champ at his bit and admit that whoever in the hospital hid the pregnancies and the babies, did it well.  
Because the Yard's Psychic Unit could not find a single pokémon spiritual track either, the case was buried.

* * *

**Sherlock Holmes' notebook**

The Daisy hospital again. Not good. Link between the babies appeared out of nowhere and the women gone into thin air. If not a filiation link, at least a Moriarty link. Smart fiend! Knows how to stay away from the Yard's P.U. I wonder if he ever takes into account the possibility of using pokémons when planning. Too unstable maybe. Or simply, too easy to track.

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

"As for now, my dear Watson, I have five different hypothesis to explain the missing ladies that I need to try. Plus three ones also involving the mystery of the babies."  
"This makes a total of eight" I remarked. "One for each woman?"  
"Well, if you intend to take into account the possibility that these disappearances are not linked as eight different hypothesis, that makes up for a total of fifteen hypothesis" he answered.

The Daisy Hospital was one of these big buildings that survived through time long before the discovery of the pokémons, and would still continue to exist for many centuries in the future. Though marked by the passage of time, it was strongly standing in front of Holmes and me. The front door was guarded, as would be expected from a mental institute. We had to wait for some time before the chief physician came to meet us.  
"Holmes, you again. Are you not done persecuting my staff?"  
"It is a pleasure to see you again, Doctor Dawes" answered Holmes.  
"What is it, this time?" grumbled Dawes.  
"Another missing person."  
"There are persons who go missing every day in every hospital, Holmes."  
"Shall I understand that you are trying to conceal evidences and culprits?"

Doctor Dawes let go a strong blow through his nostrils.  
"Nothing of that matter, Mr. Holmes, and you know that. I only want to keep my peace and reputation safe."  
"Of course" said Holmes.  
He produced a paper from his pocket. Dawes blemished.  
"Since when do you work with the Yard?" protested the physician.  
"It happens, sometimes" answered Holmes with a mischievous smile, pocketing the paper again.  
"Fine. Come on in. My office first."  
"As you wish."

I followed Holmes and Doctor Dawes through the corridors, passing closed doors, nurses and doctors in medical attire, as well as pokémons carrying medical supplies.  
"What is this paper you showed Dawes?" I asked Holmes.  
"A warrant. I stole it from Lestrade's desk and faked the signature."  
"Our dear Inspector will not be pleased when he will learn about that!"  
"Let us pay attention that he never does, then."  
I sighed. He was only being himself, after all, and the warrant could always prove useful.

"Sit down, please" said Doctor Dawes as we entered his office.  
We settled down in his guest chairs.  
"What do you want this time, Mr Holmes?" he asked. "I already told you all I could!"  
A spectral pokémon crossed his office's wall to give him a paper for a signature, and departed.  
"I still hope that the person responsible for all your troubles will make a mistake one day, and I will carry on looking for clues and evidence each time something new happens" answered Holmes.  
"What exactly do you want?"  
"I will start by browsing your timetables, if you do not mind."  
"What do you mean, my timetables?"  
"The schedules of the nurses and doctors working times, and the residents they attend to."  
"I fear I do not have such kind of archives, Mr Holmes."  
"Well, then the files of the missing residents then."

Dawes raised to his feet.  
"I can not allow that, Mr Holmes! Not in my hospital! The medical files of my resident are protected by medical confidentiality!"  
"Would you be so kind as to read them for me, then?" continued Holmes.  
"And what exactly do you wish to know?" growled the doctor menacingly.  
"I need to know who exactly was in charge of your missing patients–medical staff as well as any other person in contact with them, from cook to maid."  
Dawes sat down again.  
"Very well, Mr. Homes. Given the warrant you possess, I guess I can tell you just that. Mind you that I will give you only the names of the persons, not the medical interventions they performed."  
"Fair enough" accepted Holmes.  
I would bet my hat that Holmes would not satisfy himself with only a few names.  
"If you would excuse me" interrupted Dawes "I need to send my secretary in the archives to find the files you are looking for. I also have residents to attend to."  
He showed us the door as politely as he could.

"He uses ghost-type pokémons" I remarked once we were out of hearing. "Enough to manipulate unstable women's psyche."  
"All of the medical staff uses ghost-type or psychic-type pokémons" remarked Holmes. "Yet this could explain why the Yard's Psychic Unit was of no use in this case. Too many possible tracks to follow."  
I nodded.  
"Let us try to find if there is any connection between the missing girls while waiting for the Doctor Dawes to give us his list, then" suggested I.  
"Precisely" answered Holmes. "There, here is one copy of the warrant. Try to see if the missing ones were last seen here in the hospital or during the trip to their families' house. I need to check upon that fact. It is of utmost importance."  
"You can count on me, Holmes!" I assured him.  
I glanced above my shoulder, to see him slip in a neighbouring room whose door was marked as "Staff only". I decided to focus on my task rather than trailing him.

I went to the reception, displayed my warrant, and asked to see the arrivals and departures register, the one from this year, the one from last year, and the one from the previous year too. It took me the whole day to trace the eight women's movements to and from the hospital, but I made a discovery that surely Holmes would find very intriguing.  
I was already waiting for him, Silver sleeping across my lap, when Thunder his whatchog finally showed up, running on all four, his stripes sparkling with alarm. Holmes followed after a short while. He was carrying his coat and hat in his hands, and wearing a medical attire he struggled to remove while running.  
"What happened, Holmes?"  
"Quick Watson–I will explain later!"  
He pushed me inside of the nearest cab, trapping our pokémons outside. Silver had to bark loudly to attract his attention, so that he would open the door just in time for the pokémons to jump inside before the cab would be running too fast for them.  
"For the love of God, Holmes, explain yourself!"  
He grinned, producing medical files from under his shirt.

When we arrived at 221B, we were both surprised and relieved to see that Miss Leech was not occupying our living room. Certainly was she sulking somewhere, either in her own rooms or at Mrs Hudson's. I decided that I would not bother, and focused upon the medical files retrieved by Holmes.  
"How did you do that?" I marvelled.  
"I dressed up as a surgeon, with a mask and a cap. I then tricked a nurse into opening the archive room for me, using the identity of one of the doctors. I was uncovered when you saw me running for the door."  
"Lestrade will be upon us tomorrow at dawn for breaking in!" I protested.  
"It was done for the greatest good" said Holmes. "I am sure that Lestrade can understand that."  
"I hope so for our sake."  
"What about you, Watson? Did you find anything of interest in the register?"  
"Indeed!"

I smiled, and showed him the notes I took.  
"All of the girls disappeared in the cab on their way to being sent home for visiting their families" I explained. "And each time, the register was signed by the male nurse C. Brookton."  
"Did you happen to remark if this Mr Brookton had signed for other departures with no return? Did you check if it was the only time Brookton had signed for our missing ladies?"  
"By Jove, of course I did! I have been working with you for long enough to pay attention to such details!"  
"Well then, what is the result?"  
"The result is, my dear Holmes, that those eight women were the only ones who went missing after being checked out by Brookton. All the others came back from their visits to their families."  
"And those who went away from the hospital for good? Any one checked out by Brookton?"  
"The reception nurse told me that only Doctor Dawes is entitled to do so."  
"Hum... Well, I will not waste time and energy thinking about these data only. Care for a good night of reading, dear friend?"  
He handed me half of the stolen medical files.

* * *

**Sherlock Holmes' notebook**

All of the missing women were more or less retarded. Doctors noted they started talking about getting married about one month before being gone. For each of them Brookton is involved in their care in an increased frequency in said last month. Have to interrogate him. Might be our man, an accomplice, or at the very least, noticed something of importance. Will see to him tomorrow. Need to check on the cab drivers too.

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

After we finished reading the medical files of the missing residents, Holmes spent the rest of the night smoking and thinking, while I took a well-deserved half-night of sleep. He woke me up very early the next day, and we went back to the Daisy Hospital to have a little talk with the male nurse C. Brookton. I had not seen our neighbour since the previous day morning, and I was starting to worry. Who knows what she could be up to while Holmes and I were away? Yet the detective, after glancing at our library, assured me that she was doing "great". I assumed that he noticed some book being misplaced and concluded that Miss Leech was busy reading and sulking. Because no news is good news, and Mrs Hudson did not complain about the young lady's misbehaviour, we left it at that.

"What do you intend on asking Brookton?" I wondered as Holmes and myself entered the hospital's hall.  
"Everything and anything, Watson. It all depends upon what I will be able to deduce from him at first glance. But I sure am suspicious about this lad. Like I always am about everybody and anybody."  
"Yet we have many evidences pointing towards him!" I argued.  
"Evidences or coincidences? It is up to us to find which one it is."  
I agreed. We needed to be very careful; there was potentially eight lives at stake, if we assumed all of the missing women were still alive.  
"There he is" informed me Holmes, pointing at a the dark-skinned, blond-haired, broad-shouldered short man whose coat's tag was reading "CLAIRE BROOKTON".  
"An interesting fellow" I commented.

I was somewhat surprised to see a man with such a physiognomy working in a hospital. Holmes warned me that he had been a soldier, certainly a medical one like me, and that he had served in India. Yet he did not appear to have left the army due to being wounded like I was, and therefore I was warned by my companion to pay attention to this possibly dangerous individual.  
Holmes gestured Brookton to approach, and the male nurse pointed at the door of the resident he still had to care for. I saw at his wrist a leather india-styled bracelet adorned with a green glass marble, and noticed his muscular shape, straight soldier composure, without any sign of important wound.  
"Do you think he might have left the army out of career choice?" I suggested to Holmes.  
"Why would he end in a mental institute after being an army nurse?" retorted he.  
I closed my mouth, thinking. There was definitely something fishy about this man.

After a short while, Brookton exited the room, accompanied by an Indian human-shaped pokémon looking like a yoga practitioner, with pink pants and headpiece, grey skin, and big round red lips, I knew to be called medicham and to possess amazing fighting abilities, corroborating Holmes' deductions regarding his life.  
"How can I help you?" the male nurse asked politely.  
"We need to ask you a few questions regarding some of your residents" answered Holmes, producing the stolen warrant. "When will you be available?"  
"Right now, if you so need" he said. "Belltosser" (I assumed it was the name of his pokémon) "can take care of my patrol for me, and it will inform me at once if there is anything I need to put my hand in."  
He led us towards the nurses' cafeteria and offered us tea.  
"Which resident do you wish to discuss about?" he said. "I must warn you that I can not reveal anything concealed under the medical secrecy."  
"I know, I know" told Holmes. "What I am interested by is the last cab destination of these ladies."  
He handed the male nurse the list of the missing residents. Brookton frowned.  
"I remember these names, yet I am unable to put a face on them. We have so many residents…"  
"I understand" muttered Holmes.

But the detective was not satisfied with this answer only.  
"Do you remember some of the residents you cared for talking about getting engaged?"  
"All of them do, at one point or another" answered the male nurse. "We are in a psychiatric hospital, after all. All of our residents are deranged."  
"Maybe you noticed something else, something peculiar, about the cab drivers maybe?" encouraged Holmes.  
"Hum… Let me thing… Well, there is one who has a mean face, and he always give those lewd looks to the ladies…"  
"Oh, interesting…" commented Holmes. "And do you happen to know the name of the gentleman?"  
"I do not; but if you ask Doctor Dawes' secretary, he might have the list of all the cab drivers we work with."  
"Your help was very precious, good fellow. I will not keep you away from your work any longer. Have a good day!"  
We shook hands with him and he departed.

At the first glance I gave Holmes, I knew he had deduced that the nurse lied to us.  
"We still need to see to the cab drivers" Holmes answered to my silent question.  
"And what is in your head, my dear Holmes?"  
"What mild mental health issues ask to regularly take drugs causing eczema as a side effect?"  
"Mild? What do you mean by that?"  
"Such as it does not cause a full incapacity of working as, let us say, a nurse, if properly treated."  
"You might like to check with one of the hospital's doctors, Holmes, but I think I remember that treatments for epilepsy, paranoia, schizophrenia can often cause such disagreements."  
"Thank you, Watson, you were of immense help" said Holmes, raising from his seat. "I will now see about those cab drivers. You, on another hand, will rush to the pokémon science library. I need very specific knowledge for this affair and I am afraid I do not have it yet."  
I was stunned. Holmes, not knowing a scientific fact needed for the solving of a case? This was simply impossible!

Yet it was, and I did as he asked me to.

* * *

**Sherlock Holmes' notebook**

No specific connection appears with the cab drivers. I will till check over their pokémons' abilities just to be sure. One might have manipulated the others into doing his biddings.  
Teddiursa, pidove, doduo, murkrow, poochyena, zigzagoon, ducklett.

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

Back in our sitting room in 221B, I was unpleasantly surprised to see our neighbour sitting in my armchair, stretched across it in an improper manner, reading some of Mrs Hudson's magazines. Yet the flat was squicky-clean, for once, and perfectly ordered.  
"Holmes will not be very pleased when he will be home" I informed her.  
"Good evening, Doctor, I'm glad to see you too!" she replied with a wince.  
"Would you be so kind as to…"  
I could not finish my sentence, as her taillow, seated on the back of the armchair, chirped angrily at me, trying to peck at my fingers. Silver growled and took his place on the carpet, leaving me to settle on the sofa instead, with the pile of books Holmes had requested. There was one about the newest discoveries regarding the pokémons of India, one about the hypnotic powers that some pokémons have, others regarding their psychic abilities, more specifically regarding their hallucinogenic and mind-control powers. I judged this atypical list of subjects a little bit far-fetched, but he was Holmes after all, and he knew what he was doing.  
I decided to study the book about the indian pokémons while waiting for the detective to return.

I made a surprising discovery while studying, and I was very eager to tell Holmes when he finally arrived - just in time for dinner.  
"I am in a dead-end, Watson!" he announced.  
"Good evening to you too" grumbled Miss Leech. "Mock-turtle soup this evening."  
"I am on a case. I have no time for eating."  
"I will feed you with a funnel, if I need to. I don't care if you eat your soup with a straw just to have your hands free for work, but you WILL eat. I will make you. Period."  
"Watson" sighed Holmes "would you be so kind as to show the door of her own flat to our young neighbour?"  
She hissed and slammed said door behind her while leaving.  
"Now, Watson, please be silent. I need to concentrate. One of them at least - the male nurse or a cab driver - if not one of each, is involved with the disappearing of the women by manipulating their beliefs into thinking they were about to meet their future husband. I might be the nurse's sole doing, it might be a cab driver's, it might be anyone manipulating one of them! And with the presence of so many psychic pokémons around the hospital, impossible to ask the Yard's Psychic Unit to find the track for us. We need to use our brains for that, Watson."

"Well" I told him "there is something you need to know. I read the book you asked me to borrow about the pokémons of India, and there I learnt that the medicharm who accompanies Brookton has psychic abilities as well as fighting ones!"  
"Splendid, Watson! You did a splendid job! Let us find about the ones that the cab drivers has."  
He split the remaining documents between the two of us, and gave me the list he made after his investigation.  
"We are looking for a pokémon who can induce hallucinations or belief modification or behaviour manipulation in the human beings, yet still look harmless enough in order not to draw attention. Therefore, said abilities must not be commonplace in said pokémon species."  
"A needle in a haystack" I commented.  
"It always is a needle in a haystack" remarked Holmes.

I must have fallen asleep while searching the books, for when I woke up the next day, the sun was already lighting the room, and Holmes was gone. He had left a bill on the table, asking to meet him in the hospital as soon as possible. I was lucky to find, through the testimony of Mrs Hudson, that he had left not long ago. I would therefore not be very far behind him in his investigation. Indeed, the reception clerk pointed me towards the secretariat, informing me that Holmes only preceded me of a quarter of an hour.  
"Ah, Watson!" he exclaimed as I entered the room. Then he excused himself to the secretary, and rushed towards me.  
"Watson, quick. I will explain in the cab. Do you have Silver with you?"  
He was not with me. I had forgotten him.  
"Well, we must hurry back to Backer Street to grab him. And possibly that nasty taillow from Miss Leech, if it is obedient enough."  
"Why the rush, Holmes? What did you find?"  
"I'll explain in the cab!"

As soon as we were on our way, he started talking.  
"Yesterday, while you were in the library, I went to see the cab drivers that are rented by the hospital. I cross-checked all of their book-keeping: none of their services was requested the day the women disappeared."  
"It is not very surprising to me, Holmes!" I told him. "Any person intelligent enough to ask the services of a consulting criminal is also intelligent enough not to leave any proof of his wrong doings in his personal papers."  
"Which lead us to the hospital's book-keeping that I read this morning."  
"You found the name of the culprit cab-driver!" I marvelled.  
"Not quite. Yet I found the interesting fact that none of the usual cab driver's name showed during the disappearance days with a pattern."  
"What does it mean, Holmes?"  
"It means that someone else was there, and concealed his or her presence behind many different names. Someone who knows all the cab drivers' names, and someone who can decide which one to call when a resident has to leave."

I opened my eyes wide.  
"The Doctor Dawes?"  
"This is what I thought, yet Brookton seems involved too. It might be that the doctor is manipulating Brookton with his ghost pokémons, which will be reflected upon Brookton's behaviour. This, his wife will tell us about. Yet we will still have to find enough evidences of Dawes' guilt, or have him confess. But, one thing at a time."  
"Why do we need our pokémons, then?" I wondered.  
"Because I may be wrong. It might have been Brookton all along, and then we would certainly need to fight some random defence system at his house, and search for clues leading towards the fate of the women that will require immediate action - like saving the latest one that was kidnapped from the hands of ruffians."  
"You are always one step ahead, my dear Holmes!"  
"I need to. We are running out of time. Oh, and by the way, did you know that a pidove with a peculiar ancestry can practice hypnosis?"  
"Excuse me… what?"  
"Just some random knowledge I picked up during last night's study."

We met our neighbour in the stairs, as she was taking our dirty clothes downstairs for the laundry.  
"Oh-hey" she greeted us. "How is the case doing? Caught the culprit yet?"  
"We are on a hurry" answered Holmes. "Where is Silver?"  
Thunder the watchog climbed Holmes' coat to settle on his shoulder.  
"Upstairs. Just gave him a bath" said Miss Leech.  
"And your bird?" insisted Holmes.  
She pointed at the basket she was carrying; the taillow emerged from under what I identified as a pair of my own drawers.  
"Does it know how to fight? What orders can it follow?" interrogated Holmes.  
"Well er... I never really trained Hawk..." she admitted. "Hawk is my pet and friend. I'm not into pokémon fighting and stuff. But it can recognize most of the things I needed for my work and get them for me in the upper shelf."  
"Not very useful" grunted Holmes.  
"Hey, maybe I can help you two guys? You seem about to do something dangerous. Maybe you'll need an additional pair of hands? Or someone to act like a bait to catch your murderer? Or..."  
He was not listening. As soon as Silver answered my call, Holmes hurried outside, grabbing my arm and dragging me with him.

The house of he male nurse was a modest, small one, with a basement, two stories, and a garret. From the outside, through the window, we could see the mistress of the house ordering the maid around. Inspecting the ground of the lane, Holmes informed me that Brookton had already left for work.  
"We will not be disturbed." He was delighted. "If the wife and the maid refuse to speak to us, we will still have plenty of time to put on a disguise and come back for a less legal way of investigating."  
"Ah, because a stolen warrant is a legal way?" I taunted.  
He did not take note of my remark and instead rang at the door. The maid opened it for us. At first glance I could tell that there was something strange about her. She appeared very nervous, with dark shadows under her eyes, hollow cheeks, shaky hands and knees, startled behaviour.  
"Even the stupidest Yarder could tell she is traumatized by something" muttered Holmes in my ear. "We are reaching the final word of this problem, Watson!"  
"Who are you, and what do you want?" asked the maid tonelessly.  
"We are here to discuss an important matter with Mr Brookton" explained Holmes.  
"The master is not here" she answered. "Come back later."  
"It is of uttermost importance!" insisted Holmes. "May we speak to his wife then?"  
"And who is it who is speaking?"

Holmes produced the warrant. The maid appeared relieved.  
"Come in."  
Holmes and I exchanged a significant look, and we followed. There was definitely something strange going on in this house.  
"Gentlemen from the Yard coming to speak about the master" announced the maid.  
The mistress of the house looked up from her needlework and came forwards to us.  
"Welcome, gentlemen. Whom have I the pleasure to welcome in my house?"  
"My name is Holmes, and this is Doctor Watson. We come here because of an uttermost important matter regarding your husband."  
"Did something happen to him?" she worried.  
"It might very well be. We need your help in order to know."  
She gently invited us to take place in the sofas, and called the maid for tea.

"What happened to my dear Claire?" she asked.  
"Well, _you_ will be the one telling" answered Holmes. "We have suspicions but without your careful and wise observations, we can not do most about it."  
She wrung her hands.  
"Tell me!" she pleaded. "What do you suspect?"  
"We do not know yet; just tell us anything weird that you could have observed regarding your husband's behaviour during the last… two years or so."  
She bit her lower lip.  
"You know, do you not?" she groaned.  
"We might" answered Holmes. His face was tense and his eyes, sparkling with interest. "It would be better for you if you told us everything."  
"I… I can't!" she cried. "I promised! I can not speak! If I did…"  
She shivered from head to toe.

Holmes gently touched her arm with the tip of his fingers.  
"You have nothing to fear anymore" he reassured her. "We are here to protect you and your husband from harm. But we can not guess what danger threatens your home if you do not speak to us."  
He gave her a handkerchief and she wiped her eyes with it.  
"Do you swear you will protect him from harm?" she pleaded.  
"I will do my best" promised Holmes.  
"Well…" she sighed. "Claire is sick. Very sick. Mentally, I mean."  
I suddenly remembered the question Holmes asked me regarding the medical treatments causing eczema.  
"He suffers from schizophrenia" she moaned, hiding her face in her hands. "He hears voices, voices commanding him to… to…"  
She shook her head.  
"I can not speak more, it is too terrible!"  
"Have no worry, Mrs Brookton. Doctor Watson here will take care of you."  
He disappeared out of the room, chasing after clues and evidences.

* * *

**Sherlock Holmes' notebook**

Maid has been serving the house for close to five years. Has always seen the master having schizoid crisis. Half a sovereign helped her remember this is the reason why he was kicked out of the army and sent to work in a psychiatric hospital. He appears to be a lust-thirsty, violent beast when at home. He has a "terrible secret" but the maid says she can not tell me what. Kitchen contains far too much food for a family of two adults and a maid. Basement door has far too many locks. Maid keeps on looking at it while speaking, avoids getting close to it. We must see what is behind this door.

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

I spent about half an hour, maybe more, comforting the poor lady while Holmes was doing I did not know what. He came back from the kitchen, calling for me. He had found a door he absolutely needed to know what was behind. His call startled the maid and the house lady, but what could the poor women do to stop us, without pokémons to protect them? Moreover, we had a warrant from the Yard, therefore calling for the policemen was useless in their point of view.  
Patiently, Holmes crocheted the locks while I was searching the room for light. I found a candle and matches the moment Holmes finally swung the basement door open.  
"Well" I risked asking "what did the maid tell you?"  
"Enough to save at least one life today" muttered Holmes back. "Be ready for anything, Watson."  
The air from the basement was heavy with the stench of human waste, mold and decay, to the point that I feared the candle I was carrying could make the vapours explode. We could hear noise downstairs, scratching sounds and strange vocalizations.  
"What terrible monster does he keep here?" I whispered.  
Holmes did not have time to answer me. Accompanied by an insect-like sound, the stairs appeared to collapse under our feet, trapping us in a cone-shaped hole from which we were unable to escape. The candle fell from my hand, the light was blown out, and terrible jaws closed on my lower limb. Everything around me became blank. I could barely hear Holmes ordering Silver and Thunder around to fight the terrible creature that was bitting me. The jaws gave up. The cone-shaped hole seemed to disappear under my hands, giving room for a regular, clayey basement floor.

I slowly came back to myself, while Holmes was attending to my wound.  
"Watson, answer me!" he called many times.  
"I am here, Holmes" I finally managed to answer. "More fear than harm."  
I managed to raise to my feet.  
"What was that?" I asked.  
"The guardian of this prison" answered Holmes darkly. "Look!"  
I let my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness of the basement, and a gasp of terror and disgust passed my lips.  
"Holmes! This is… too terrible to be real!"  
"Alas, real it is."

I can barely find the courage to recall what terrible things I saw in this nightmare basement. There were eight women here, covered with rags that might have been in a distant past clothes from the Daisy Hospital residents. One of them appeared to be in the late stages of pregnancy, another one was holding a baby tight against her chest. They were chained to the walls, sitting in their own waste, sick, scrawny, terrified, wounded by the same terrible pokémon guardian that had bitten me, pale, dirty… Living pictures of misery.  
"I will call for the Yard" I managed to tell Holmes.  
I could not stand the view of what was before my eyes.  
"I think it would rather be wise" approved Holmes. "Have Brookston be arrested, too."  
I nodded.

* * *

**Sherlock Holmes' notebook**

Found all eight missing residents. Solved the case of the hospital's babies too. Brookston was not wise to have his wife and maid get involved. Found instructions from "M" in his personal papers too. Was not wise not to burn them, was not wise to give instructions on paper. Mistake after mistake, I will defeat Moriarty.

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

I had been rather shocked by this case, and I decided not to novelise it. The public does not need to know that such fiends as Brookston existed in such a civilized city as London. Yet part of me was relieved to know that the Head Doctor of the Daisy Hospital was not to be blamed in this whole affair.  
"You see, Watson" commented Holmes as we entered our sitting-room "even I can be wronged. It is a good thing I always double-check my suspicions before making a move."  
"Welcome home!" exclaimed Miss Leech, rushing towards us. "How was it?"  
"Mind your own business, young lady" told Holmes sharply.  
"Rough day, too terrible to tell" I warned her.  
"You know what?" she cried at us. "I'll tell you what. I'll tell you how the great Sherlock Holmes is going to die, if you refuse to tell me about your day."  
"You annoying little brat!" shouted Holmes in answer. "You… How can you dare to do that?"  
She grinned at him.  
"Well, how was your day then?" she insisted.

"Shut up" ordered Holmes. "You are unable to understand nor to cope with the crimes we uncovered today."  
"I'm not a little kid!" she cried out. "Stop acting like I was some kind of naughty, annoying child, you misogynist! I am a person! A grown-up one! I have nothing to do all day long, no work to attend to, not even paper to go back to writing stories like I used to! I am forbidden to go out even for a stroll in the nearest park or to go to the opera! You know what? I used to think you were the greatest mind of all time. I really did. Now I see that you are just a …!"  
I dare not write down, even in my own diary, the name she gave Holmes.  
Still shouting and crying and yelling, she stomped downstairs, certainly to vent about Holmes in Mrs Hudson's lap.

"You know what, Watson?" Holmes told me when our neighbour's voice died out. "This is one of the forty-two reasons why I never wish to get married."  
I could all but approve.


	4. The Puzzling Bullet

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PUZZLING BULLET  
°oOo°

* * *

**Sherlock Holmes' notebook**

Still can not forgive myself for letting Watson being hurt. Must be more cautious next time, not let him stand first in front of danger. His help is too precious. Must take better care of him. It was all my fault. Maybe a seven percent solution can help.

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

Despite all my medical knowledge, my wounded limb did not appear to heal properly. I suspected that there was something in the saliva of that... trapinch, as it appeared the name of the pokémon which bite me was, that acted like a venom of some kind. After a week the muscles were still sore and for once I was glad that Holmes had no case to attract him outside of the house, were I could not follow him. Yet I despaired for a change, because of the terrible things we saw in that nightmare basement during the Adventure of the Disappearing Fiancées. I have been at war, I have seen many terrible things, but the simple idea of what those poor women have been through made me shiver with horror and disgust.  
Our nasty neighbour had started to act more respectfully towards Holmes and me. Though she still called me "Doc" and would still have sibling familiarities for the whole of the house occupants, she understood now that we were not to be bothered regarding our work, and that she should keep to her rooms outside of the meal hours. Despite not very gentlemanly, Holmes' slating proved efficient to tame her behaviour and keep her safe behind drawn curtains and closed doors.

We had an argument earlier this very morning, she and I, about her readings. She insisted on adventure novels, gothic horror serials, and many others that are not fit for a lady's library. I gave up and handed her my personal copy of Stevenson's Treasure Island, just to keep her quiet. I was too worried about Holmes who, locked in his own room, was certainly intoxicating himself with his seven percent solution, to lecture her for too long a time. I was only too glad to send her back in her flat and have some peace at last.  
Mrs Hudson's steps climbed the stairs, and she entered, carrying our lunch - compotée of rhubarb, smoked herrings, mashed potatoes, rice pudding. I sent Silver to bark at Miss Leech's door to summon her, while I would knock at Holmes'. I got no answer from him.  
"Seven percent solution?" asked the neighbour when entering our sitting room, pointing at Holmes' door.  
"Seven percent solution" I confirmed with a frown.  
"You sure you don't want me to have a look at your leg?" she asked.  
Despite me knowing she would use such a word even in a mixed crowd, I could not help but wince.  
"No, thank you Miss, I will be good" I assured her.

She shook her head.  
"Don't be silly."  
She pushed me towards the sofa and seated me in it. I swear to whoever might read my diary that it was her doing and that I did not do anything sinful to the young lady. Only her cultural difference is to blame. Anyway, she started massaging my wounded leg while I did my best to push her away from me, to not look at her, and to think about the latest medical paper I read.  
"Don't be so prudish, Doc!" she sighed. "I'm only taking care of that wound. I've seen the kind many a time, it's very commonplace in my time due to the higher amount of dark- and ghost-type pokémons that can be found. They are less rare than in your time, especially in the european wild forests, and getting sore muscles from a friendly chew from a friendly pokémon is close to a monthly incident."  
"And you know how to cure such a wound?" I asked.  
"Yep" she answered.  
"Were you a nurse?"  
She laughed.  
"Massage therapist for humans and pokémons in a spa resort."

For the first time in two months –since her arrival, in fact–, I took a good look at her.  
Manda Leech was a tall woman –taller than the average from my time, at least. She was more muscular too, and her profession as a massage therapist explained this fact. Yet she was of average built. Her straight hair was red and cut at the level of her chest. She had the pale skin that goes with red hair, and green eyes.  
Regarding her interests, I remembered hearing her speaking about writing stories and going to the opera. She was of random habits, random behaviour, yet honest about her feelings –too honest, in fact, to the point of being capricious. Curious and trusting, affectionate and altruistic, yet illogical, reckless, with a total lack of good manners.  
Despite her usual good mood, I did not remember hearing her speaking optimistically of her future. She was not very grateful of the shelter and protection and everything Holmes and I gave her, apparently taking them for granted.  
So was Miss Manda Leech, from more than a century into the future, the annoying, nasty neighbour who knows nothing of proper etiquette despite the three books Holmes and I gave her on the subject.

"What else useful do you know how to do, apart from healing massages?" I asked her.  
"Cooking, a lil' bit of sewing –just enough to follow a simple pattern for a carnival costume–, tons of random stuff I needed for my writin', how to handle a tamed pokémon for a massage, the different oils and their properties, cleanin' the house, basic school knowledge in science, that kind o' stuff. And of course, modern opera –I LOVE opera! I like music very much but I positively love opera."  
"This might prove useful one day or another" I told her so not to vex her.  
"Yep" she said, letting go my limb. "You should be better soon, Doc. And by the way, is there anything you can do to help him recover from his addiction?"  
She pointed out to Holmes' room.  
"On the long run, it can cause cardiac arrest, paranoia, insomnia, depression, lack of concentration, memory lapses, that kind of nasty stuff. The least things he needs if he wants to be able to work properly, isn't it?"  
"How do you know that?" I exclaimed.  
"Done research. I'm fond of his –_your_ adventures, remember?" she answered with a sad smile. "It is his problem if he kills himself that way, anyway, but I though it would be good if I at least warned you 'bout the consequences."

She raised on her feet, brushed the folds of her upper skirt, and settled down at the table to have lunch as if nothing had happened.

* * *

**Sherlock Holmes' notebook**

Can not get rid of Leech, can not bear to have her around. Not even a case to focus my mind upon. Thinking about putting a "specialist of missing cats" poster at my door, just to have something to do. Silly problems from commonplace people only keep me busy for half an hour at best. Boring.

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

Holmes finally showed up at tea-time, enabling me to lecture him regarding his unhealthy habits.  
"It is Miss Leech who told you to do that, did she not?" he grumbled. "I will tell her to mind her own business. She is not my wife."  
"Speaking about Miss Leech..."  
He turned towards me.  
"What is it, Watson?"  
"Well, I do think you should stop treating her like some annoying pest, or like a wild pokémon that needs to be tamed and trained."  
He gave a sigh.  
"What did she do to you to make you think that way?"  
"She healed my wounded limb. She used to be some sort of nurse, before living here."  
"Oh" he said. "And here I had deduced from the shape of her hands and the size of the muscles of her arms that she was some kind of leisure masseuse in a turkish bath."  
"Massage therapist in a spa resort" I corrected.  
"Is it any different?" he told me scornfully.

"Holmes, I know she is far from being the perfect civilized lady and that she is invading your life and privacy. I am aware that she is nasty, represents a financial surcharge for both you and me, and that the knowledge she has of you is frightening you. Yet, I do believe that your way of dealing with her is not the best one."  
"What should be the best one according to you, Watson? Asking her hand in marriage? Offering her a cohort of maidservants? Summoning full orchestras for her pleasure?"  
"Being kind to her."  
"This is exactly what I suggested."  
"I mean by that, do not treat her differently than any other client of yours. Speak kindly to her instead of shouting. If you terrorize her too much, she will disobey your orders, and run away. Remember she knows everything past and present about you. She certainly knows who is Moriarty and how to contact him. She has the ability to join forces with him in order to fight you, if you ever piss her too much. Think about that."  
He froze for a second.  
"Dear Mew Mother of All!" he exclaimed. "It was time that you reminded me how wicked a woman can be. You are right. I shall apologize to her and seduce her into wishing never to leave me."  
"Holmes, you should learn to be less excessive in your behaviour."  
"Nonsense, Watson, I only do what I need to do, nothing more, nothing less."

I knew there was nothing I could do to calm down my eccentric friend, so I remained silent until I saw him jump at the window, rub his hands, and stand still next to our door. Then I grabbed Thunder to make it keep quiet, and sent Silver to fetch the seven percent solution bottles from Holmes' room. I hoped my companion would be too busy with his visitor to notice the manoeuvre.  
"Inspector Gregson! What a pleasure to see you!" greeted Holmes, shaking Gregson's hand. "What case do you bring?"  
The inspector cleared his throat to answer.  
"Well, this is the most puzzling death I have seen in my life. Apparently the victim was slingshot, but the projectile entered her body living her clothes intact. I thought at first that this was done using a ghost pokémon's abilities, but the Psychic Unit found nothing. The cause of death was declared undefined, the identity of the victim is being investigated still."  
The detective welcomed the "good new" by raising his arms to the sky, a wide smile on his face. I took advantage of the opportunity to slip into the lavatory to empty Holmes' bottles.  
"Watson, this is not the moment to take care of such ordinary needs!" called my companion. "Grab your hat and your medical bag, we are going to the scene of crime!"

We were lead to what appeared to be a waiting cab with drawn curtains, stopped in a large avenue with heavy traffic. No driver was around to be seen, but a few constables were securing the area.  
"The store manager" Gregson pointed towards the shoemaker in front of which the cab was situated "called around two o'clock to complain that the cab driver had left his cart unattended since noon and that his patience was over with it. He said that he had knocked at the door and that nobody answered so he assumed there was no passenger neither. It is not until the constables arrived and opened the door that we found the body. It was around twenty to four" explained Gregson, uncovering the corpse.  
The victim was a woman in her late twenties, in business clothes. She was tall and slightly pudgy with an olive complexion and had brown eyes and wavy hair, that she wore in a braid.  
"Upper middle-class" commented Holmes. "An intelligent, working woman. Not married, not engaged. I assume that it is the coroner who deranged her clothing after remarking the stain of blood on her upper chest?"

Gregson nodded.  
"Because the blood appeared to have passed through the fabric from under the clothes, we deduced that she was wounded. Yet, what a puzzling wound! I will show you."  
"Not so fast, Inspector! I need to examine the surroundings first. Did you take pictures before the coroner's intervention?"  
"Yes sir! They will be available tomorrow."  
"Good!"  
Thunder was ordered to observe and smell the inside of the cab while Holmes did his best to find any possible clue on the outside. First he examined the mud on the legs of the two old dark horses harnessed on the front, as well as their shoes. On a similar way, he examined the cab itself, wheels and mud.  
"It is fortunate that it rained two days ago" he commented "but not this very day. Do you think not, Watson?"  
"Indeed" I approved.  
At the very instant of my answer, rain started to pour down, heavy on our shoulders. Quickly, the constables grabbed oilcloth overcoats from their own vehicle to keep the scene dry.

"I can retrace today's itinerary of the cab through the city!" announced Holmes. "Too bad the weather is going to wash away whatever I would have observed on the ground."  
He carried on with his observations, not minding the water drenching us. The seat of the driver had his attention, as well as the footprints left by the muddy driver's shoes on the climbing steps and footrest.  
"Hum, very peculiar" he muttered to himself.  
I could hardly hear him under the heavy rain.  
"Maybe we could move the cab to the Yards' shed for your in-depth investigation" suggested Gregson. "I do not think that the middle of Oxford Street is the best place for you to work. Furthermore, we are attracting the attention of the passers-by."  
"It will only take me a couple of minutes" informed Holmes. "Then, we can move the body to the morgue, where I will examine it further."

My companion then turned to his pokémon. The watchog, seated very straight, was carrying a piece of torn paper in his front paw.  
"Well done, Thunder!" congratulated Holmes. "Where did you find it?"  
The rodent pointed at the half-closed hand of the body.  
"Intriguing" muttered Holmes, examining said hand. "What else have you found?"  
Thunder pointed at different mud smudges on the floor of the cab, as well as on the seat opposed to the one where the victim was found, then it showed Holmes a rust-coloured stain on the underside of the bench occupied by the victim. Sherlock Holmes examined all of them with his magnifying lens, scratched samples from the rusty stain with a clean pocket knife that he secured in an envelope, and raised back to his feet.  
"I have everything that I need" he announced. "Let us guide this hearse to St Barts', shall we?"

The first thing that Holmes did when he found himself face to face with the Yard's coroner and the corpse, was to complain about the clumsiness of said coroner.  
"Why did you have to start examining the body on the scene of crime before I arrived?" protested Holmes. "You have erased capital evidences!"  
"What capital evidences?" protested the coroner. "I did nothing less than my work!"  
"You disturbed the victim's clothes with so much un-delicacy that the undergarment was torn."  
"It was already torn when I removed her bodice!"  
Holmes froze.  
"Would you please repeat that?"  
"I said that when I removed her bodice, I could see that her camisole was torn."  
"Show me!" he ordered, his face displaying a very deep excitement.  
I was curious too about this peculiar detail, for women are usually very careful about their garments.

"Peculiar indeed, and of outmost interest" commented Holmes. "This explains most of the mystery of her death. Tell me more about the rest of her garments, the way you found them."  
"Strangely crumpled front bodice compared to the state of the skirt and sleeves" indicated the coroner.  
"Which pairs with the overly and violently worn and stretched seams" said Holmes, pointing at said details.  
He carried on his inspection of the corpse, examining the hands with care. He frowned, let go a joyous sound, and frenetically searched his pockets for small glass bottles and wooden nail cleaners. He appeared to manicure the victim's hands, keeping whatever it is that he found under her nails in the glass bottles. He pulled off her lacework mittens and rolled up her sleeves, examining her wrists and arms. Then again he spoke to himself in an inaudible tone, which informed me that he had found something.  
"I must see the wound" he announced. "Then, we shall examine the content of her pockets and handbag for clues regarding her identity."

I examined the wound together with Holmes. Despite the presence of a strange-looking object inside of it, the shape and aspect was similar to a stabbing wound. It looked like the wound had bled, yet there was not a drop on the victim's clothes, to the exception of the stain where the fabric touched the broken skin.  
"I have never seen anything like this in my entire life!" I admitted.  
"Would you please be more specific, dear fellow?" asked Holmes.  
"It is as if all the blood was sucked from the wound! If not for the stain left on her clothes, I would have sworn she was stabbed post-mortem."  
"She was slingshot" corrected the coroner. "See the projectile in her wound?"  
"Hand me long pliers" asked Holmes to me.  
With these tools, he removed the "bullet" from the wound and hold it for all to see.  
"Bullet" said the coroner again.  
"It is the metal tip of a walking stick" corrected Holmes. "The conical shape indicates a hiking type. May I keep it?"  
"You have to ask Inspector Gregson" answered the coroner.

"Gregson!" shouted Holmes in the direction of the corridor.  
"I am here" announced the Inspector, rushing towards us. "What is the matter? What did you find?"  
"I need to keep what was left inside of the victim's wound" Holmes answered, displaying the metal tip.  
"To the condition that you share with us whatever it is that you already know about this strange case" answered the Inspector.  
"Are you blackmailing me?" protested Holmes.  
"It is an exchange of favours" corrected Gregson.  
The both of them eyed each other scornfully.  
"I will do without it, then" announced Holmes, putting down the metallic item. "I hope that you will make a good use of this important clue."  
"Be assured that I will" answered the Inspector.  
"Let us inspect her pockets and handbag then, shall we?" proposed Holmes.

"She has nothing that could help identifying her" interrupted Gregson. "I already searched her purse."  
"Well, let us see what I can deduce where the Yard can not" retorted Holmes.  
"I am curious about what you can make out of a handkerchief, a bottle of perfume, a few coins..."  
"Handkerchief embroidered with the initials B and G, giving hints regarding the victim's identity. A bottle of expensive perfume, which does not match the price of her clothes –certainly a gift."  
"BG is a very thin hint as to who she is" said Gregson.  
"Yet it is the starting point of our research. Let us put an ad in all the evening papers as to looking for a missing lady with our victim's appearance and initials, adding that she have spent the night in an hotel for business purposes."  
"How can you deduce that?" I exclaimed.  
"Elementary" answered Holmes. "There is a map of London in her purse, including the train and underground stations and lines, as well these timetables."  
"Any Londoner can own them" remarked Gregson. "It is not a proof that she is a stranger."  
"No" remarked Holmes "but the fact that all these documents are brand new, points towards a recent purchase hence a recent arrival in town."  
Inspector Gregson frowned.  
"I should have known so."  
"Of course you should!"  
"Anything else that can be of use to you?"  
"Not here" answered Holmes. "I have a few tracks to follow. Good bye Inspector, and good luck in your investigation. You shall hear of me again soon."

"Watson" Holmes told me as we exited St Barts "we need to part if we want to be of use. I need you to take Thunder with you, and I will have Silver to accompany me, if you allow."  
"By all means, Holmes. But what exactly are you going to do? And what to you need of me?"  
"First, I need you to carry these samples I gathered from the victim to Baker Street, on my chemical table. Second, I want you to investigate at every hotel from Wendell to Pall Mall and Oxford. Here is what you will do. You will change this banknote at the first hotel. Then you will pretend that you think you saw the wife of a good friend of yours at a window, and ask for the entries book. There you will search for any woman with the initials BG. If needed, bribe the butler–there should be enough for the whole of them with the money I just gave you. Third, as soon as you have a corresponding name, you will point at it and enquire if she is not short, large and blond. This will have you receive the exact depiction of said lady. Fourth, you will pretend that you made a mistake. You will carry on with all ladies whom possess BG for initials, each time giving a fake depiction. As soon as you have found the identity of our victim, ask to wait for her in her room. If you are allowed in, you and Thunder will search it as thoroughly as possible. If you are not, and if bribing does not open you any door, carry the name of the lady and her hotel's home with you and wait for me there."  
"And you? Where are you going?"  
"Looking for where the cab was parked during the murder."

The rain had stopped and the night had already fallen when I found the name of the lady, and the hotel she had booked. Beatrice Guppy was she, and the Queen of Dreams was her hotel, situated not far from High Street Kensington underground station. Then I waited for Sherlock Holmes to come back, having absolutely no clue about his whereabouts. Manda Leech joined me for a late supper, some exotic dish of alfalfa spouts seasoned with lime, kiwi and chilli peppers, accompanying small slices of beef tongue. I was truly amazed by the improvement of our meals since the arrival of Miss Leech, Mrs Hudson's cuisine being nutritious, yet composed of very few recipes.  
"Where is Holmes?" asked Miss Leech, yawning. "Oh, don't tell me: he's away under disguise in some dangerous place to find clues regarding your latest case?"  
"Exactly."  
"And what kind of mystery is it, if I may ask?"  
"An impossible one. The victim was wounded through her clothes, without leaving any mark upon said clothes."  
"The weapon did not pierce her garments?"  
"Apparently."

She peered at me in wonder, fondling the rich green fabric of her upper skirt.  
"Still, why did Holmes send you on investigation with Thunder?"  
She pointed at the poké-mongoose, which was quietly washing its round face and ears.  
"My guess would be that he is out on a dangerous errand and does not want me to be wounded this time. He asked for Silver."  
"Yeah, you're surely right. Oh, gosh, it's so boring to stay at home all day! If only I could only go to the library to fetch some documentation in psychology and criminology, ships and pokémons, and also geography, I could start over my _Treasure Island_ fanfiction. But, silly me, I don't have nothing to write with. Meh."  
"I thought you were a massage therapist!"  
"Yep, I was. Doesn't mean I can't write stories for my pleasure and the pleasure of my friends."  
"You have a point."

"Do you hear?" she interrupted me. "I think, Doc, that Holmes is coming home."  
Indeed he was, as announced by Mrs Hudson's voice and sound of steps in the stairs. The door opened, letting in my friend in a surprising attire. Once again he was wearing one of his disguises. His slender body was emphasized by a skin-tight costume and high heeled embroidered shoes of rich brown and red. Over that, he wore a thigh-long green overcoat and a feathered hat. Earrings, heavy makeup and a short wavy silver wig completed the whole.  
Miss Leech let out an approving exclamation.  
"Not your business, young lady" said Holmes before our neighbour could pronounce a single word.  
"Still" she retorted while returning to her rooms "you should wear that more often. You're damn attractive, dressed up like that."  
She disappeared through the door before Holmes could answer. He then turned to me.  
"What news?"  
I told him of my research and of its results. Then I asked him about his.  
"Read my notebook while I change into more conventional attire" he told me. "And put that bag at my chemical table."

* * *

**Sherlock Holmes' notebook**

Cab departed from around Wendell's park. Driven somewhere around Pall Mall, Shadwell, Pall Mall again, and Oxford's Street. Mud on footrest not matching wear marks = cab stolen. Mud from Wendell's and Shadwell's areas inside of the cab on opposite bench and floor = driver get down at Shadwell to climb inside the cart, put his feet on the bench. Blood (to be tested as blood) (to be tested against victim's) wiped under victim's bench. Paper placed in victim's hand after death, with pencil writing: "shame on you". Interesting affair.

Victim fought with murderer. Samples of skin and blood under her nails. Marks around her wrists = murderer restrained her with one hand, undressed her with the other. Torn her camisole, stabbed her with walking stick that left metal tip in wound, cleaned the blood from her, dressed her up again, put paper in her hand. Walking stick was wiped under victim's bench? (blood type still to be tested). During fight, murderer had his feet on opposite seat to keep balance (hence traces of mud). Crime happened in Shadwell. Must inquire there.

Sent Watson to look for the lady's identity. Went to Shadwell. Put on disguise of random stage artist, enquired if anyone saw the cab I ordered this morning. Was lead to the place where cab was said to have stopped. Found in garbage bin old and worn out walking stick with no tip. Diameter matches crime weapon. On the ground, trampled by passers-by, shards of small chartreuse-coloured glass bottle with oily content. Picked up all available fragments. Need to go back to Backer Street to analyse everything.

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

My friend Sherlock Holmes allowed me to take a good night's sleep before explaining the matter further. When I found him in the morning, seated at his chemistry table, an empty coffee pot on a nearby chair accompanied by an ashtray full of cigaret ends, I guessed that he had spent the night verifying and cross-verifying his clues.  
"Good-morning, Watson! What o'clock is it?"  
"Eight and a half."  
"Aha, breakfast-time already! Will you kindly ring Mrs Hudson and the neighbour? And please be so kind as to have the page-boy send this telegram."  
He never turned his gaze away from his experiments while talking.  
"I am about done, Watson! Just settle down the breakfast on the table and pour me a cup of strong coffee with two sugars. I will join you soon."  
Glancing over his shoulder, I could see that the shards of the bottle had been put together. Some of them were missing but the general ovoid shape was obvious. The neck was neither short nor tall and Sherlock Holmes had removed the label to examine it further. Numerous vials of chemicals were standing on the side, some of a brownish colour, others with opaque content, or water-like liquid with a precipitate at the bottom. He had prepared a bath of reactants and had bathed the label in it. Now he was holding the piece of paper next to a flame, eagerly waiting for something to happen. His strong microscope laid unattended on a footrest, yet the sample Holmes has been examining was still in it.  
Our landlady and our neighbour entered the room, the first with a kind maternal smile, the other appearing together bored and irritated.

"All of this was very interesting, Watson!" my friend finally announced, leaving his experiments. "Miss Leech, if you would be so kind as to not interfere in the conversation…"  
"Sure" she answered. "Not saying a word, the great Sherlock Holmes is talking."  
There was something of sarcasm in her voice I could not blame her for, given the uneasy way my friend was treating her.  
"Well, both the blood found under the seat of the cab, and the one left at the bottom end of the walking stick I picked up yesterday's night, match the blood type of the victim. It is _not_ a proof that it is hers, but it is certainly not a proof _against_ it."  
"What does it mean?"  
"That it is impossible to prove that the blood is hers or not. It is a good thing, though, because it does not points towards another direction than the one we are following. To the organic materials under her nails, then. They are bits and pieces of skin and hair. The first is yellowish and the second, dark brown. They are hints towards the aspect of our suspect. We can add that he is strong, a little short, certainly with broad shoulders and muscular shape, and that his name is Threlfall."

"How did you deduce that?!" marvelled our neighbour.  
"Tut, tut, Miss Leach, you promised not to interfere. Now, I will also add that this character is short-sighted and physically abusive."  
"Brilliant, Holmes! But, by Jove, how did you…?" I asked.  
"Simple, my dear fellow. The name of our man was carved in the stick he used to murder the victim, yet he abandoned it all the same in a garbage bin. The carving was difficult to see but not invisible yet; therefore he had to be short-sighted not to notice his name was still visible. As for the physical abuses, the can has been used to hit something–someone–very often. As you can see" he showed up the different marks to me with his magnifying lens "here, and here, and here, and here also. There is blood, too, on the handle, old stains of blood, that got stuck where they could not be wiped out properly. I was not able to make out the blood type, though. But this stain over here ran into this crack of the wood, and showed a different blood-type than the victim's."  
"He used his stick on at least two different persons" I concluded, a shiver down my spine.  
"Precisely."  
"But who?"  
"My first guess would be an abused child or lover–a family member upon whom he possesses some kind of power, else he or she would have run away to safety long ago."

I suggested that the man may be an alcoholic or a lunatic.  
"No safe man would be violent with a person under his protection" I assured.  
"Watson, my dear Watson, you are too straight a mind to fully understand the criminals. Let us turn towards the bottle whose shards I collected and label I examined. First of all, this is a rich bottle yet it was mass-produced. The marks of the mould are visible on the flanks. The oil inside I was not able to find enough quantity for analysis, but the label–the label was of the Queen of Dreams hotel."  
"The victim's hotel!" I exclaimed.  
"Precisely. This allow us to link the location and the walking stick to the murder and the victim."  
"Why did he kill her?" I insisted. "Certainly he knew her, for he left a message in her hand calling shame upon her."  
"I will not jump to conclusions, Watson, until I have thoroughly searched Lady Guppy's hotel room. Gregson shall be here soon with a warrant. Then we will head towards the Queen of Dreams."  
"What about the culprit? You have his name!"  
"He will not disappear into thin air, Watson. Moreover, I may have his name, but I could not find him in the directory. I will need a lot of patience and luck to find him with just his name, and the lady's hotel room may contain clues as to how we can find him."  
"Fair enough."  
"Sherlock Holmes is aaaaaaaaaalways right" commented Miss Leech, sipping her coffee.

Inspector Gregson protested feebly upon Sherlock Holmes' wish to concentrate upon the victim rather than upon the suspect, and we entered the rooms she had occupied in the Queen of Dreams. Everything was neat and tidy inside. We let the police force take care of the paperwork while I followed Holmes and Thunder around the room.  
"I do not understand what you are hoping to find here, Holmes."  
"Well, what is this box? Hullo, it is a brand new jigsaw puzzle! And here, a ball! Child's toys! Why would she have such a thing with her, Watson? She was a Miss!"  
"A present for a nephew?" I suggested.  
"I do not think so. Had she had family in London, she would have stayed at their house rather than in the hotel."  
"Charity?"  
"Why would she keep them in her room rather than giving them right away? This is very peculiar and suggestive. Now, her personal papers. What did she hide that she could have been ashamed of? What terrible secret of hers lead Threlfall to assassination?"  
Opening every drawer and turning upside-down their content, Holmes let out a cry of joy.  
"Look Watson! The missing link!"  
I could not see anything particular in the old photograph he handed me, yet experience had taught me to trust his instinct when my eyes could not decipher what was clear to his.  
"Everything is clear to me now. Let us move on, Watson, and send the Irregulars looking for Mr. Threlfall."  
"And the _regular_ police too, maybe?" I suggested.  
"It might indeed increase our odds by seven percent!"  
I frowned at the bad joke.

* * *

**Sherlock Holmes' notebook**

Found picture of victim at younger age accompanied by a man matching Threlfall's depiction so far and by a baby. Shame on her indeed, if, as I suspect, she abandoned her family to focus herself towards her work.

* * *

**Doctor John H. Watson's diary**

Finding our suspect was far easier than we first thought, for the man was already known by the police forces for his violent behaviour and alcoholism. Yet Sherlock Holmes had to show up all of his chemical analysis results, as well as the abandoned walking-stick, before Gregson would consent to an arrest warrant against the man. I could not blame him, for he did not possess all the clues within the hands of my friend, and the law needs to be respected in such a way as to protect the innocent from false accusations.  
It was half past six in the evening when we knocked at the door of the poor house, situated in Priory Alley. A young child girl opened it for us. She looked scared, scrawny, and the little skin she was showing was covered with bruises. There was a recent cut above her right eye, which was also black. If any child her age ever displayed signs of ill-treatment, it was her.  
"Who are you?" she croaked feebly. "What do you want?"  
"I am Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, and we came to see Mr. Threlfall. As for what we want…"  
Sherlock Holmes interrupted the Inspector.  
"We want to give back to Mr. Threlfall the walking stick he lost. We have found it. We have come to give it back."

The young teenager glanced at the five of us–Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Gregson, myself and two constables– and she backed away from the door.  
"Wait a moment please. I will see if Father is available."  
A terrible voice thundered, a sharp sound was heard, followed by the yelping of the girl, and half-contained sobs. The man appeared at the door. Indeed, he was as Sherlock Holmes had depicted him, a little shorter than me, with a huge, square face, strong jaws, small red porcine eyes, an olive face stained by alcoholism. The corners of his mouth were dropping with spite, his yellow and rotten teeth showed between the snarling lips, and his long whiskers were greasy. His long, wavy hair, was dark brown, and loosely knotted backwards. His breathe, when he spoke, was heavy with the vapour of his drink.  
"What d'ya want? I ain't did nothin' wrong."  
"Your stick" offered Sherlock Holmes. "If it indeed is yours?"  
The small, porcine eyes had a hard time to focus upon my friend's face. Finally they settled, and lowered to the stick with apprehension. Inspector Gregson made a movement towards the man, but Holmes gestured him to wait a moment more.  
"And what if it's mine?" asked the alcoholic.  
"I will give it back to you, of course!"  
"Well, stick's mine."

Sherlock Holmes smiled widely.  
"Oh, but the tip is missing, is it not? A sharp, pointed, metallic tip. What a shame!"  
"Not my business" groaned the man.  
"A sharp tip" insisted Holmes. "Perfect for stabbing, let us say…"  
Holmes did not have time to finish his sentence, for the terrible monster hurled the cane behind him and jumped at his throat. The fiend was so strong, despite being slowed by his beverage, that the help of the two constables, as well as Inspector Gregson's and mine, were barely enough to contain him and keep him from beating Holmes unconscious. Finally he was put in shackles and sat on the first chair we could find in his rooms. Holmes was rubbing the blood falling from his nose and pacing the room.  
"Well, sir, I think you owe us an explanation!" he told our prisonner.  
"I ain't owing ya nothin'!" he retorted. "It's you who is accusin' me wrongly of bad-doin'!"  
Inspector Gregson eyed the child, curled up in a corner, still sobbing silently.  
"Oh, do you really think so? Well, dear sir, I announce you that you are under arrest."  
"And what for?"  
Sherlock Holmes smiled widely.  
"Well, I will tell you why!"

"You stole a cab" he announced "somewhere around Wendell's park. A closed cab had your preference, because it would allow you to perpetrate the crime you had planned while being hidden inside. The, you drove it in the Pall Mall area, and stopped right in front of High Street Kensington underground station. You knew that a Lady by the name of Beatrice Guppy was staying for a little while at the Queen of Dreams hotel, though how you knew it is still unknown from me. You picked her up and instead of driving her to the place she wanted to go, you went directly into the Shadwell area. There, you knew nobody would ask anything regarding your business should noises be heard coming from the carriage. This would suit you well. You climbed down from the driver's seat and upon a false pretext, entered the cab. Miss Guppy recognised you at this instant, for you had left a note at her intention on the seat, and she tried to push you away, forcing you to climb atop her to immobilise her, thus rubbing your muddy shoes on the seat opposite of hers. At first you had some weird idea of humiliation in mind, and so having trapped her wrists in one of your hands, you proceeded to undress her. Yet you changed your mind, and instead you stabbed her with your walking stick. You put so much fury in the act that you pierced down to her heart through her ribs, and she died instantly. Hurriedly you wiped up the blood from her wound, before wiping your stick under her bench, not noticing that the tip was still in the wound. Then you dressed her back and exited the cab. During your fight with the Miss, she had tried to defend herself with her purse, and so a small flacon of oil had slipped from it and into the folds of your clothes. It fell down and broke when you exited the carriage, abandoning your weapon at the same time. You drove back towards Pall Mall, not sure about what to do with both carriage and corpse, before finally leaving both in Oxford's Street. As to the why, I fancy that she is the mother of the child you have under your care. She wanted to forgot about you, yet she still care for the child, in her own way, for she had purchased toys as a present."

"Da hell if I understand how you guessed dat !" Threlfall shouted. "Ya were behind me all da time, where ya not?"  
"Before you take him to the station, Inspector, I would like to have a few more words with him. May I?" asked Holmes.  
"I give you only five minutes" conceded Gregson.  
Holmes turned back towards the restrained man.  
"Why did she leave you? Why did you murder her after all that time? And how did you know where she was dwelling?"  
"I'm of no reason to answer ya!" yelled the prisonner. "I won't tell ya anythin', d'ya hear me? Nothin'!"  
"She wanted to see me" whispered the child.  
We had almost completely forgotten her presence.  
"She wanted to give me presents for my twelfth birthday, so she sent a letter saying where she would be. She would always send letters and a little money for me. She could not take me with her, so said she, because of her work, but she wanted me to have all that I need. Or so is what the gin merchant says–he is the one reading her letters to us. She would have come to visit us had Father answered her letters, but he never would, and he forbade me to do so."  
Gregson took the prisoner by the arm, and away they went to the station, while Holmes and me would head back to our own quarters for dinner.

Holmes had been silent during the whole dinner, and I found myself filling in the void in the conversation by speaking with Miss Leech about writing techniques. We both discovered that our respective ways were very different, and that hers could prove interesting. Yet I knew Holmes would not allow her to carry on with this past-time, for fear of troubling the future should her writing be found. Finally, while our neighbour was carrying our plates back into the kitchen for the landlady and her maid-pokémon to wash them, my friend laid back in his chair and lit on a smoke.  
"There is something puzzling me, Watson" he announced. "Shall Miss Guppy be frowned upon for having abandoned her family, or applauded for keeping in touch with them and caring for them from afar?"  
I eyed Miss Leech, who was coming back from the kitchen with a plate of food and home-made treats for the side-table.  
"What would society say of the man who leaves wife and child behind in order to earn money for them?" I asked back. "And what would society say of said wife were she not to answer her husband, and to kill him atop of that?"  
"Are you saying that the fair sex should not been treated differently than the strong one?"  
"When it comes to justice, my dear friend. The body may be different, but the soul inside is the same."  
I have to admit that the warm glance Miss Leech was giving me, was worth bearing an argumentation with Sherlock Holmes.  
"Well, I will trust your judgement in that matter, Doctor" my friend told me. "By the way, Miss Leech, do not leave in such a haste! I have been very busy with work these last few weeks, but now I have a spare hour for you. What could possibly make your stay with us more pleasant than it already is?"  
He eyes widened and sparkled with excitation.  
"Music!" she cried out. "Opera records! Do you have any I could borrow?"  
"Watson, would you be so kind as to settle your gramophone here on the table?" requested Holmes.  
The pleased expression on the young lady's face sank to my heart.

* * *

_Source of inspiration for this case:_

_ www. Dinosoria crimes_inexpliques. htm_


End file.
